


Two Can't Keep A Secret.

by starbucks22



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Female Protagonist, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-10-01 18:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 29,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20359411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbucks22/pseuds/starbucks22
Summary: Amalia Academy is not the nice, well funded boarding school that everyone pretends it is. Secrets and schemes run deep. Together with her new best friend, a little kid that's way too smart for her own good, and the girl she's slowly falling in love with, Annalise Anderson plans to expose it all.





	1. Prologue.

_Two can't keep a secret if one of them is dead._

It's a song lyric, not a way of life. But around here, in this town? It might as well be. 

Hey. My name is Annalise Anderson. It's not very catchy, I know, but I'm sure none of you are here to make fun of my name. And if you are- the door is right over there, you see that big, long, slab of wood? Yep. That's the door... 

Anyway. 

I think it's time to tell my story, don't you? You're all here reading my diary for a reason, right?

So, welcome aboard.

Hold on tight.


	2. Welcome To Amalia Academy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annalise has her first day of school and quickly finds out that her roommate is a very cute girl.

Welcome to Amalia Academy.

It's the school full of losers, freaks, outcasts, art kids, hobos, popular kids, lots of rich kids, and many more...

Where do I fit in? Well, none of the above. At least, not at first. 

So, for today, we're gonna be talking about my first time. _No, _not that first time. Get your mind out of the gutter! No, we're going to sit down and have a nice chat about my first day at a fancy boarding school.

Also known as Before It All Went Downhill.

"Hey! You're the new kid, right?" 

"Who? Me?" I pointed at myself in faux surprise. The girl who called me out nodded happily. 

"Yep, you! Am I right?" 

"I'm new here, yeah," I admitted with a nod. "Uh, it's my first day here. How did you guess?" 

"For one, your shirt breaks dress code. For two, your backpack is all bedazzled, so I'm guessing that you're... a freshman?" 

Still don't know why that girl said the word "freshman," like one might talk about a plague on the human race. I mean sure, ninth graders can be stupid and annoying, but they aren't _that_ bad.

"You got all of that wrong, actually." I responded anyway. "I know my shirt isn't allowed here, that's kind of the point. Not my fault if someone here doesn't have good taste. But really, who doesn't like a band tee? Also, I'm not a freshman. Try not to make assumptions about people you don't know next time, okay?"

All the startled girl did was nod.

She ran off and didn't ask me anymore questions after that.

"Is this my room?" 

The dorm room had the basics. It had a desk, because we were all students, duh. It also had a bed and a closet, too. All you really need in a good bedroom, really.

"This is our room," a blonde haired girl confirmed. She walked into the dorm, arms full of boxes that easily hit her chin. 

"Oh shit, let me help you with some of those." I reached forward and grabbed at the nearest box, which somehow did not cause the other ones to fall. "Uh, I guess I'm your roommate?" 

"Guess so," the pretty blonde replied, shooting a friendly smile at me. She set another box down. Then, since she had one hand free, she stuck it out for me to shake. 

I did so, smiling. 

"Hey, I'm Annalise... but my friends call me Anna." 

"Nice to meet you, Anna," the girl replied happily. Her second smile was even brighter and sweeter than the first one. "I'm Julie. I hope we'll be good friends, Anna! I was actually gonna go get some coffee as soon as I finished unpacking." She then motioned out toward her clearly _not _unpacked things, "But I was thinking I could just go now instead. Start the school year out strong. Do you want to come with me?" 

I grinned. "Absolutely! Let's do it." 

She grabbed her purse and dragged me out the door.

_Wow, I was screwed from the start._


	3. Girls Are Cute, Guys Are Fun, More For Everyone!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As her first week of school draws to a close, she meets a cute boy. One cute person in the world just can't be enough, right?

"How have you _not _been dress coded yet?" 

I shrugged in response. Multiple kids my age had tried convincing me to wear something other than my ratty old band shirts, but it didn't exactly go well for any of them. So, smartly, they learned to not question me about it anymore. 

Definitely for the best.

"Guess nobody's dumb enough to keep scolding me for it. Maybe they're all scared of me. I do look pretty intimidating when I want to. That's probably it."

"Please," Julie scoffed, not bothering to look back at me as she continued putting up some random poster that she had brought back from home. "You're too cute to be scary." 

She then picked up a piece of tape as if she wasn't the cause of my exploding brain. 

I was so distracted by what she had said that I didn't even notice a guy walk into the room, small rug thrown over his shoulder.

"Yo Jules, brought this for you. Mom sends her thanks."

"For what?" Julie asked, once again not looking up. "I didn't do amything."

"She's thanking you for going to high school," he scoffed. "I mean, I'm doing that too, and you don't see me getting any thanks for it, do you?" 

"No," she agreed. "But then again, my grades are better than yours."

"Yeah yeah, just another thing for Mom to hold over my head." He looked like he was going to continue rambling, but instead he looked over at me. "You Jules' roommate?" 

Jules is the cutest nickname ever, by the way, but you didn't hear it from me.

"Yeah, I'm her roommate," I replied nonchalantly. "You her brother?" 

"Is it that obvious?" 

"Hell yeah," I nodded. I motioned back and forth between the siblings as I said so. "You're practically twins." 

I wasn't just saying that either, the two were both equally cute. I would have believed it if they said they were indeed, actually twins. Yikes. I would probably die if they were. Maybe it's good that they aren't...

"Thank you!" Julie finally chimed in. "He had to get his looks from somewhere. My little sister is way prettier than us, so it definitely wasn't from her."

"And Mom is an actual supermodel," the boy agreed. "Oh! I forgot to interrupt myself. I'm Jason Mathers. It's nice to meet you, whatever your name is."

"Annalise, but my friends call me Anna. Why are you here, anyway? Do you even go to school here? I've never seen you around."

"I start next week," he explained. "I've been going here forever, so the school didn't care that I'm starting late." With that response spoken and done with, he started wandering around the room, eyes on anything he could see. "You two have a much better room than I do. It's super annoying. Maybe I'll just start hanging around here and bug Julie."

Julie made a face as I nodded in agreement.

"You should totally do that."

"Plus," Jason said, the mischievous twinkle in his eye not going unnoticed by me, "I need to show you the ropes." 


	4. The Diner Chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason, Annalise, and Julie discuss ways to shine in school over some good ol' French fries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this took me all day to do

"Let's get down to business-"

"To defeat the Huns!" I yelled energetically, throwing a fist in the air proudly. I put said fist down again when people started staring. Maybe I should learn how to stop shouting in diners and restaurants... It's still a really bad habit. "Anyway.... Yes. Business. Let's do that."

Jason and Julie (hey, they both have a J in their first names!) shared a smile and a glance before focusing again.

"Anyway," Jason began, smiling, "As I said, I gotta show you the ropes. So, first thing's first-"

"French fries?" That, stunningly enough, had come from Julie, not me. Her brother glared at her for a second before reluctantly nodding. "If you absolutely have to have them, sure. But in the mean time, business. Want to know the first trick to ruling the school?"

Julie shook her head.

"I'm not talking to you, you've been going to that stupid school for years. You have all the knowledge. You could use it to your advantage, but you want to be nice and sweet and boring. Annalise here," he motioned toward me as he said my name, "Isn't."

"Does that mean you're saying I'm not nice?"

"That's not what I'm saying at all," he replied calmly. "I'm just saying that you have more of a hunger to rule."

"It's a high school," I told him, as if he didn't know this, "I don't think there's much ruling involved."

"Trust me, there is. People there are brutal. It's gonna be hard to get through it if you aren't in control."

"You're lucky to have us," Julie chimed in quietly. When it looked like she was going to say more, she simply swirled her straw around, looking down at her soda as she did so.

"First rule about ruling," Jason began again, voice stern, "You need to look the part."

Julie turned to stare at her brother, soda momentarily forgotten. "You do remember that we have a strict dress code, right? The best we can do is hope we don't look like potatoes by the end of the day."

"Oh yeah, I know. But nobody can control what you wear off campus.... Clearly." He motioned down at his own brightly colored outfit.

"Okay, that's true, but since we're off campus, it doesn't matter how we look. It has absolutely nothing to do with school. Why bother with it if we don't have to?"

"Because people will see us."

"So?" She shrugged. "It's not like we're prancing around in Hello Kitty pajamas or anything. We're totally fine."

"Okay, that's fair," he agreed. "But if people outside of school will see you, you have to look your absolute best... But!" He yelled out the last word suddenly, drawing more eyes toward us. The waiter that was walking toward us with our order almost tripped and fell. The woman (very) reluctantly slid the plate of French fries onto our table before walking away.

"Speaking of clothes-"

"You're the one that brought it up in the first place," Julie reminded him with a roll of her eyes as she reached for a fry. Jason nodded at her and kept talking.

"You," he pointed at me as he said it, "You need to start following dress code, or you're going to get kicked out. This isn't public school. How many times have you gotten detention so far?"

"Um. I actually have to think about that..." I tried my best to ignore the smug look on the boy's face, which wasn't very easy to do since he was sitting right across from me. "Probably like... Three or four? Then instead of getting more detention, they set me up to help clean things after hours. Why?"

"You've been here for one week. What, are you trying to get sent home?"

I tried to look neutral and calm as I replied, but looking back on it now, I'm quite sure that I looked pretty crazy. "No! That's the last thing I want, trust me."

"Okay... Then you need to listen to the rules. You can't be in control and in charge if everybody hates you."

"Uh, actually-"

"Nope! Don't want to hear it. If you need better clothes, we can help with that."

I shook my head. "That's really not necessary-"

"Oh, but it is!" Julie spoke up again, crossing her arms. "When we were unpacking last week, you had a few pens and notebooks, a wallet, some stuff for our room, and one small backpack full of clothes. Unless you have family coming to help you with things later, that's not nearly enough."

"I get by just fine on my own. I appreciate the offer, but I just don't have the money to go shopping right now. Tuition for Amalia is... super expensive, as I'm sure you both already know."

"Oh, we do," she agreed with a nod, "I don't think Jason or I ever said that you had to pay for the clothes, though."

"I'm honestly concerned right now," I told her solemnly. "What are you implying right now? Because, just so you know, I break rules, not laws."

I probably should have expected the horrified looks that greeted me after that sentence.

"No!" Jason hissed quietly. He shook his head so hard he could have passed as a bobble head, I'm sure. "No! There's a Goodwill down the street. Our parents gave Jules and I a little bit of spending money to have until they can give us more in October."

"Why October specifically?"

"Parent's weekend. It's pretty self-explanatory, so you probably get it."

"Yeah... So I'll have to see my parents next month?"

The siblings quickly shared a confused glance. They looked away just as quickly, probably in hopes that I wouldn't notice.

"Yes you will," Jason replied. "Unless they don't come for some reason. You might have to let them know when to show up, though. Maybe they forgot about it?"

"I doubt-" I paused, not wanting to finish my sentence. I had just met those people, the last thing I wanted to do was seem annoying or too much. "...You know, you might be right," was what I ended up saying. "Um, what time do we need to be back on campus?"

"Depends. What grade are you in? I forgot to ask you."

"Oh, I'm in eleventh."

"In that case, we don't have to get back to campus until ten."

"Good!" I noticably brightened up at that. "We get a later curfew tomorrow anyway, don't we?"

"Yep! Not by much, though. We have to be back by 10:30 tomorrow."

"That's fine with me. Thank goodness it's almost Friday."

Jason raised his glass of water in the air, determined to ignore that it was starting to spill. "I'll drink to that. Anyone else?"

"Me!" Julie and I raised our glasses too.

"Alright, on three, we all yell cheers," Julie instructed. Her brother and I nodded.

"One," she began slowly, "Two," she smiled, "Get ready... Three!"

"CHEERS!"


	5. Plan 1: Success.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All eyes are on Annalise. Annalise and Jason have a (somewhat) heavy discussion about feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone please read this

The goal was for me to get people's attention, and that's what I did. 

By the end of the second week of school, I was entirely covered in the colors of the rainbow. 

Jason was having a field day. 

"It fits you perfectly! This just screams Annalise."

My head tilted slightly in silent confusion.

"Well, uh, it's because..." he stuttered out, looking away from me. For some reason, he was suddenly awkward. Frowning, I stood up, brushing grass off of my indigo/violet colored pants. 

"It's because what?" 

"I'm really not sure how to word this."

"Come on!" I lowered my brightly colored sunglasses as I spoke. The red shades laid down on my nose as I walked over to my friend. "Just tell me, it'll be okay. I even promise to not act offended! Please? I really want to know." 

He tried, (and failed,) to avoid my curious glance. He nervously fiddled with the textbook in his hands. After a few more seconds of silence, he sighed, placing the book down onto the grass beside him. After that, he stood up and turned to face me.

"Okay, I'll tell you," he finally said. Looking around nervously, he leaned closer and lowered his voice. "I could be wrong... But you've come off as really flirty."

I couldn't help it. I started laughing. "No way! No no no no, I'm not flirting with you. I've only known you for like, two weeks, buddy."

He nodded patiently. "Yeah, that's great and all, but that's not what I meant."

I stopped laughing. "Then what do you mean?" I asked, knowing very well what he meant.

"I mean, I think you might like my sister."

"...Oh."

At my lack of explanation, Jason started to backtrack.

"I mean, I could totally be wrong. And I really hope that I'm not being rude by assuming, I really do. It's just how things seem. Tell me I'm wrong and I'll stop talking. Well actually, I'll stop talking as soon as you want me to-"

"Okay!" I interrupted loudly. Both of us cringed as heads turned our way. "Okay," I repeated quietly, "You're... Not wrong." 

That mischievous glint in his eyes promised trouble.

"Before you say anything, Jason, because I know that you're going to, I just need you to promise one thing."

"Sure! Then can I tease you?" 

"As long as you stop when I tell you to. Deal?"

"Deal!" he grinned. "What do you want me to promise?" 

"You can't tell Julie. Like, ever. Or at the very least, you can't tell her until I say you can, okay? We've only known each other for a couple of weeks and she's the only friend I have here that's not you." 

"Understandable. Don't worry, I won't tell her. She totally likes you though, but you didn't hear it from me." 

"Okay. Cool. Anyway, how is this rainbow mess supposed to help me? You said something about getting attention, right?" 

"Right. You need attention. You can't take charge without it, because without it nobody will care. They won't even know you exist."

"Okay, but clearly people know I'm alive. I have a reputation now, too, I'm sure."

"Ooh!" Jason's eyes practically sparkled with excitement. "Reputations are perfect! What do you people think about you?" 

"Uh, that I'm loud and cocky."

"Well aren't you?" 

"I'm not cocky. I'm just occasionally confident. And I don't know how that makes me super confident, this whole 'dressing up like a rainbow' thing was your idea. What's next? Am I gonna show up to school cosplaying?" 

"No," he scoffed. "That's against the dress code, which Julie and I are still trying to convince you to follow." 

"Okay, but newsflash- today is the only day that's worked."

"That's not true!" a sudden voice called out as Julie rushed over, Algebra textbook in one hand and coffee in the other. "You've been following the dress code the entire week!"

"What?" I shook my head. "No. I was wearing a crop top with yesterday's outfit, remember? I had sandals on with the day before yesterday's. And three days ago I had a bright pink wig on my head. I'm still confused by that, by the way. Where on Earth did you find a pink wig over a month away from Halloween? I doubt there's any costume shops around here."

"Actually, there is," she informed me. "But that's not the point. Even though you didn't know it, you were actually following the rules this week while simultaneously sticking to our plan."

"How? That doesn't make any sense. This place is all strict, remember?"

"Which teacher told you about the dress code recently? Which one's been getting on your case?" 

"Uh. Miss Driscoll, why?" 

Jason and Julie shared a glance, before smiling and turning to look at me again.

Julie set her textbook down on top of her brother's before plopping down on the grass. She took a quick sip of her coffee before speaking up again. "Well, that explains it."

"I... Don't know what that's supposed to mean. How does that explain anything? I'm still super confused. Is that the intention?" 

"No. Miss Driscoll has been working here for at least thirty years. She's old, and she goes by the old code. Things have changed. It's not the 80's anymore, you know?" 

I nodded. "No, yeah, I totally get that. The 80's seems so recent to me, though. If you mention the 80's like you just did, I would have assumed it was twenty years ago. Maybe even less... Anyway, I've gone off topic, haven't I?"

"We all did," Jason answered with a nod. "Anyway, Jules, please get to our point quickly so I'm not late for gym." 

Julie nodded. "Okay, let me explain as quickly as I can. I tend to ramble though, which you've already noticed, so this might not go so well. To start with, your crop top. Yeah, that's technically not allowed, but you were wearing a jacket with the school's logo over it every time we saw you, and every time a teacher could pay a lot of attention to you, like at lunch. Am I right? I think I'm right."

"Yeah, you're right. I'm honestly surprised that I didn't get detention from it anyway, though. You could see my stomach, the absolute horror," I said dryly. "I'm sure that I'm making some old man go crazy somewhere. The only thing worse would be," I dramatically gasped at that, touching my shoulders as I did so, "My shoulders! What a horrible thing! What a crime! Idiots. Anyway, I was still wearing a crop top, even though I had the school jacket over it. Certainly they care about that?" 

"Nope," Julie shook her head. "Next?" 

"The wig I had. Isn't there a 'natural hair only' rule?"

"There is, yeah. Jason and I backed up on that one, actually."

"...What did you do? Nothing immoral or illegal, right?" 

"I still don't get why you think we'd commit a crime." She shook her head again. "No. We simply told her that your hair's dyed an unauthorized color and that you didn't have time to redye it because of all the studying you do. You want to ace your classes, since it's the most important thing to you. So we said that you needed the wig for only one day, and that your hair would be good to go by the next one."

"And they bought that garbage?" I asked a bit too loudly. Luckily, the people walking around us didn't take notice of my outburst. "Okay. Stupid, but okay. The sandals?" 

"You were cosplaying." 

"But we've already established-" 

"Religious reasons?" Jason chimed in again, asking more than telling. We both shook our heads at him. He shrugged and looked down at his watch without saying anything else.

"You, might friend, made the tragic mistake of wearing socks with sandals the other day," Julie informed happily. "You're a fashion disaster now, congrats!" 

"Thank you? I guess? I didn't even notice I was wearing socks."

"How do you just not notice?" 

"I'm pretty sure I pulled an all-nighter and just yanked on whatever fit me best. Anyway, now that all that's established and Jason needs to go to class, what's the next step of this 'take charge' plan?" 

"I can answer that one," Jason said, looking up from his watch momentarily, "Now that you've got eyes on you, it's time to make waves."

"I'm concerned. What do you mean this time?" 

"I mean," he grinned, "It's time to spark up the rumor mill." 


	6. Fight Till We See The Sunlight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One eventful night on Annalise's third week of school, she makes a friend, fights with Julie, signs two petitions, and gets ready to lead a protest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this for like, 3 hours. This is over 2500 thousand words im in shock

The third week of school, I accidentally lead a protest.

Yeah, not kidding. I really did that... I'm stunned that it didn't backfire on me more than it actually did.

"Hello!" A perky teenager stood outside of the library door, waving and smiling at everyone who passed by. "Do you have the time to sign a petition?"

"What kind of petition? Because if this is about library books or something, I'm positive that the school can afford it. Everyone here has to be rich just to afford the tuition, am I right?"

I was pleased to see the small redhead nod. "That's true. The only issue is that nobody wants to spend their hard earned money on anything that isn't about themselves or their kids, you know? Even if it's just about library books. People are greedy sometimes."

"That's true... Uh, Miss Whatever Your Name Is."

"Oh, no need to call me Miss. I go to school here, actually."

"I figured." I nodded, taking the clipboard from her hands as I read through whatever the petition was supposedly about. "Climate change?"

The girl's face clouded with confusion for a few seconds before her brain caught up. She rushed forward, moving quickly so she could rip the aforementioned paper out of her clipboard. "Oh no," she shook her head. "I mean, yes, that's a very worthy cause, but nobody around here really cares... I've learned not to shove that one at people. I was going to go around town this weekend and try to get people to sign that petition. Maybe I'll gather more luck with the adults?"

"I doubt it, but maybe." I then grabbed a pen from a cup that was full of them. "But you should totally go for it. Do you get money off of this?"

"No, of course not!" she said quickly. Then, calmer, she shook her head and tried again. "No, I don't. I mean, well, I do, depending on the petition. For example, with the climate change one, I won't. The point of it is to raise awareness, you see? If I can do that with enough people, then I'm successful."

"Okay, what about this one?" I pointed back over at the clipboard, which had been turned over to something about charity work.

"I get money from that, but I obviously don't get to keep it," she explained. "I give it to the charity mentioned on there... Which I believe is for cancer."

"You believe?" Looking back now, I'm sure I was probably a bit more skeptical than I actually needed to be. The girl didn't seem too offended though, so no harm, no foul, right?

"Well, I do... A lot, especially around here. Maybe you've heard of me?"

I crossed my arms and shook my head. "Look Red, I don't even know your name, remember?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed loudly, shaking her head like I did. "No, I forgot about that entirely, I'm so sorry! Um, I'm Amanda Sanders! It's truly a pleasure to meet you, most people aren't this nice when I try to make them sign something. It definitely doesn't go well when half of the students walking in here are high on caffeine and anxiety."

Amanda Sanders. Her name definitely sounded familiar, but I can't recall ever meeting her before the day I'm talking about now. It would take me quite a few months before I realized where I knew her from.

"I haven't heard of you." She didn't seem too disappointed by that, or really disappointed at all, which gave her one point in my book. No, not an actual, literal book. You all know what I mean, I'm sure. "Plus, about the 'high on coffee and anxiety thing,' there could be more to it than that," I began, in what was probably way too casual of a response, "They could just be high in general. Or maybe high on life? I doubt that last one is right, though."

"Yeah, no way," Amanda agreed. "These people look like death every single day."

"Same. But you're here every single day? Willingly? Like, you didn't screw up and this isn't all mandatory?"

She smiled in response. "Not mandatory. And yes, I generally do come every day."

"What happens when you get sick?"

"I know people that can take over for me. Maybe you can be one?" Before I could answer, she continued talking, barely pausing to take a breath. "Or not! That's totally fine, too. Uh, what's your stance?"

"...Stance?"

"On the petition, of course!" She smiled brightly, holding out the clipboard once more.

"Oh right." I grabbed it back from her once again, scribbling down my signature as soon as I got a hold of it. I then tossed it back to her and placed my pen back in the cup stocked full of them. "There you go!"

"Excellent!" Her eyes quickly roamed around, likely trying to find my signature. Her eyes seemed to sparkle (they didn't actually sparkle, but they may as well have,) once she got a good look at which one I signed. "Would it be totally inappropriate if I gave you a hug?"

I then shrugged my backpack off of my shoulder and watched as it fell to the floor. "Nah, go for it."

And go for it she did. Amanda ran forward and pretty much crushed me in a hug. After a few seconds she let me go. The redhead then gleefully clapped her hands together. "Thank you! You're so nice!"

Was she talking about the petition or the hug? Either way, I decided it would be better to just not ask. What I did do, however, was smile and shrug. "Not really, but thanks."

"I'm guessing I'll see you tonight?" I asked, pointing over to a nearby flyer. "Have you ever gone to a protest before?"

That was probably a stupid question, in hindsight. Amanda was definitely the type of girl to make a second home wherever she could do good at, and that most definitely included (mostly) peaceful protests.

Sure enough, I was right. Despite the fact that I had a class in half an hour, I pulled a chair away from it's nearby table, slung my backpack over it, and sat down to listen to my new friend talk.

******

"Hey, where are you off to? I haven't seen you at all today."

Julie looked up from her textbook, watching me put things in and out of my backpack.

"Why are you putting Goldfish in there? You do know that the cafeteria is open until an hour before curfew ends, right? I'm pretty sure that would be nine tonight."

"Yeah, but I don't know how late I'll be out. The cafeteria might be closed by the time I get back. Can you throw me some bandages?"

Clearly confused, she did so. I looked up to see a pack of them flying at my face.

"Thanks! Also, about the cafeteria, I know what you're saying, but I don't know how long I'm going to be out, though. Did I just mention that?" At her nod, I kept talking. "Hey, if I'm not back by eleven tonight, can you cover for me?"

"What would you be doing at eleven on a school night when curfew is at ten? But yeah, I'll cover for you anyway. I don't know if you noticed, but it's a Thursday."

I nodded. "Yeah, so? What about it?"

Julie chuckled. "Well, it's just that nobody around here has plans on a Thursday night!"

I threw the bandages into my backpack. "Yes, but I do. Guess I'm nobody today!"

I watched as her face quickly filled with worry, clearly not realizing that I was joking. She caught on when I started laughing, though.

"I'm kidding!" I yelled out as I grabbed a couple of water bottles from the new mini fridge... which I definitely didn't recognize. I paused as the door on it closed slowly. "Uh, Julie?"

"Yes?"

"When did we get a mini fridge? You see it too, right? Either I've been too tired to notice, or this wasn't here yesterday. I'm leaning more toward the second option."

"You're right, it wasn't here yesterday," she agreed. She then looked back down at her textbook as she flipped a page. "We got that today, just a few hours ago."

"Okay... How? I know for a fact that I didn't buy this. I was busy all day and I'm not rich like you are. Did you get it?"

She shook her head. "My mom did. She asked Jason to bring it up here. Unfortunately, he almost got detention over it."

"Detention? How come?"

"Because he was going into a girl's dorm during school hours. You know how this place is with that."

"Uh, no?" I threw some granola bars and water bottles into my backpack. "Why would he get in trouble over coming into your dorm?"

She shrugged. "I'm a girl. He's not. People are weird around here, they suspect things."

I set my backpack down as my eyes shot over to my friend. "But you're siblings!"

"Yeah, I know. That's the only reason he's allowed up here at all in when it's not visiting hours."

"Visiting hours? What even is this."

She shrugged again. "School. Anyway, you never answered me. What are you up to tonight?"

"Oh, I'm going to go co-lead a protest," I answered with a shrug. I picked up my backpack again and slung it over my shoulder. "Climate change. Wanna come?"

"Uhhh... I don't know. Is it safe? I don't want to go if it isn't safe. I also definitely don't want you going if it isn't safe."

"Have you ever been to a protest before?"

Julie rolled her eyes. "Have you? You don't seem too experienced right now, and you aren't even answering my questions."

It was my turn to roll my eyes. "Take a chill pill. Yes, I've been to a protest before. Only once so far, though."

"Only once and you're already leading the thing?"

"Co-leading," I corrected. "It's not just me. But yes. Why?"

"Who are you going with, then?"

I frowned, "What's it to you?"

"I just want to know if you're being smart about this."

"You mean, you want to know if I'm going to get arrested?"

"That's not what I meant... okay, maybe it is, just a little bit." When I rolled my eyes, she simply talked some more. "I just want you to be safe and to keep out of trouble! Is that really too much to ask for?"

I didn't answer that. I know that she wouldn't like the real answer. "Look, I just want to go out and see someone I like while I stand up for what I believe in. If I get arrested one time over a peaceful protest, I'm sure it'll be fine. I might not even get into trouble! Even if I do, it's not going to ruin my life or anything, you know?"

"Fine, but what if you get kicked out?"

I shrugged. "You have my phone number."

For some reason though, she shook her head, seemingly annoyed. "No. I mean, what if you get kicked out of school?"

"You have my phone number," I repeated. "Easy. We still talk that way, but I don't think I'm going to get kicked out over this. Calm down, okay?"

"I'm trying," she huffed. "Whatever, this is going nowhere."

"That's true. What's the point of fighting? It'll just make both of us upset, and we don't want that."

"Yeah," Julie said grumpily. It looked like she would rather do anything else instead of agreeing with me. "You're just gonna do what you want anyway."

I didn't bother to deny that. Lying would get me nowhere. "Well. I'll be safe, okay? Call me if you need anything. I'll try to be home before curfew, just for you."

Her frown intensified. "I feel like you're mocking me."

"That's your opinion and I'm going to respect it, but you're wrong. I'm not mocking you."

"Yes you are! You were just a few seconds ago, too! Don't bother denying it, I know better."

"Really?" My head tilted slightly to the side as my hand found my hip. "When was I mocking you?" I asked mockingly. "I don't recall."

"Just now!" Julie threw her arms in the air exasperatedly. "Why are you like this?"

"Like what? Independent? Stubborn? Because yeah, I'm stubborn, but it almost always comes to my advantage. I do what I want, I get what I want, and nobody can stop me."

"Nobody?" she scoffed, crossing her arms tightly as she jumped to her feet, textbook completely abandoned. "What about your oh so mysterious parents that you never bother to talk about? Couldn't they do something about you? Oh, wait!" Her face contorted nastily. Her nose went up in the air to create the always obnoxious 'I'm better than you' look. "Maybe they realized that you won't listen to anything that anyone says. You never do! Maybe they realized that it would be nearly impossible to tame a wild child like yourself. Maybe that's why you're at boarding school in the first place, despite the fact that tuition is expensive and, like you mentioned, you aren't rich. You don't have money. Maybe you were so hard to deal with that your parents were perfectly ready and willing to pay over 20,000 dollars a year just to get rid of your sorry ass!"

A long silence reigned after that. I was super offended and I remember that to this day. Neither of us knew what to do or say, so we simply stood there in silence, glaring at each other.

I couldn't believe that Julie could be that nasty over something she had no idea about. I couldn't believe just a bit of worry over my safety could turn her into a snippy little brat.

So, after a solid three minutes, I was the first one to speak.

"You... You are such a stupid bitch," I hissed out, anger coating my voice, "I can't believe that you would dare insinuate that my parents would send me away just because I'm, in your words, 'hard to deal with.' That couldn't be further from the truth. I don't talk about my parents and I'll admit that easily. We aren't as close as we used to be. We don't always get along all that well, and I didn't want to see them on Parents Weekend because I didn't want things to be awkward between us, but my parents are the most hard working people that I have ever met in my life and nobody gets to talk shit about them. They love me, and I love them. And have you ever just tried to stop and realize the fact that my parents sent me here because they wanted the best for me and my education? Huh? Did you ever think of that?"

I didn't stop to hear what Julie had to say. Then, when a tiny bit of the anger, (really, not much at all,) finally flooded out of me, I walked away.

"Fuck off."


	7. Parents Weekend Begins.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason forces Annalise and Julie to call a truce, Jason and Annalise finally get to hang out by themselves, and Parents Weekend begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so big IM-

Parents Weekend was guaranteed to be a disaster of a catastrophic size. There was no way to avoid it.

I no longer had all of my friends with me to help me through it. Jason was still around, sometimes, but he wasn't too pleased with Julie and I. Though it stung to know that he didn't want to be around much because of our fighting, it was nice to know that he wasn't favoring one of us over the other.

However, there were some days where it was obvious he wanted to throw his sister into the sun. Like this one particular Thursday, for example.

"Parents Weekend!" Jason yelled one day in early October, also known as my fourth week of school. It had been exactly a month since move-in day. Wow, time flies when you're plotting.

Julie gave an uninterested "whoop" as her brother walked in.

"Come on!" he groaned, shaking her shoulder so hard she almost fell off of the new beanbag chair she bought. "Get excited! It'll be great to see Mom and Dad."

Julie huffed more as she shook her head, looking down at her phone. "I'm not in the mood."

"Well, get in the mood!" he retorted, clearly not pleased with a no. "Plus, you have to see them. All other activities are shut down for the day."

She raised her phone in the air. "I have this. Problem solved. No face to face interaction."

I had to try hard not to roll my eyes at her. Luckily, her brother didn't have the same reservations. He simply plucked the electronic out of her hands.

"Yeah, but are you forgetting who pays for this?"

She huffed again, blonde hair falling into her eyes. She angrily swiped it out of her way. Once it was (for the moment) not annoying her, she then reached forward to retrieve her phone. Jason simply frowned and held the thing high above his head to where Julie couldn't reach it.

"What's your deal?"

"My 'deal' is that you're refusing to see Mom and Dad, who're taking time out of their days just to come see you. It's rude. Please don't be rude, for me?"

"Well," the blonde started, tone changing from annoyed disinterest to pure bitterness within seconds, "It's not like I'm the only one avoiding family. Little Anna here won't even talk about them."

I glanced at Julie out of the corner of my eye. "I did last week. Or does your short term memory loss make you forget that?"

"I don't have memory loss."

"You sure? You don't seem very good at remembering facts. Seriously, any facts at all. You don't remember that I told you about my parents last week, you don't remember that your parents pay for the precious phone all your followers are in, you don't remember when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue..."

"You've got it all wrong."

"Really?" I raised my eyebrow, unimpressed and unconvinced. "Please, correct me then. Let me know where I supposedly went wrong."

She glared angrily. She even stopped reaching for her phone so she could glare at me as hard as she could... Which, for a girl full of fury, wasn't all that hard. I've seen worse in Kindergarten.

"Please," I faked a bored yawn, "I've seen worse glares in Kindergarten. You've got nothing on Sally Henderson, so you might as well just give up now."

Yawning, while still staring, Julie looked ready to start yelling. She barely got one word out though, (the word she said was 'you') before Jason stepped in. Literally stepped in, too. He jumped in front of me, still holding the now ignored phone hostage as he stared at his sister exasperatedly.

"Why are you like this?"

Since it was her brother talking and not me, her fury visibly diminished. She still huffed and crossed her arms, though. "What do you mean? Why am I like what?"

"This." He motioned at her anger filled stance and over at the way I had started slouching. "She's all relaxed while you look ready to tear her hair out."

"I would never, that's so rude!" She sounded incredibly offended. Looking back on it, I think that small bit of well, her being her, was actually real. Even now, she's never pulled at anyone's hair.

"Okay," Jason replied, slightly more relaxed, but not by much. A smidgen of relief was present on his face before he snuffed it down and continued talking. "I don't get why you're so mad at each other."

Both of us girls glanced at each other just seconds before trying to blurt out our answers. "She said-"

"Ah, nope." He raised a hand and shook his head. "Not happening. Talk slowly, and please, I beg of you, not at the same time. My poor brain can't handle it."

"Your poor brain can't handle very much."

"Hey!" he yelled out, faux offended. He put a hand to his heart and shook his head dramatically. "I can't believe you," he sighed. What a drama queen. "I can't believe you would do this to me...Which one of you spoke?"

I was definitely surprised by the sudden turn around. But, looking at Julie, I saw the ghost of a smirk on her face and the fact that she didn't look nearly as tense. She was still pretty wound up, but she didn't look like she was going to eat somebody anymore, which was definitely improvement.

"It was me," Julie answered, raising one of her hands up like we were in school. I know that we technically were, but it was after hours... This is so not the point I was trying to get at. Anyway, let's move on.

"Please make up? Please at least talk to each other instead of just insults?" Jason asked nervously. "Parents Weekend starts tomorrow and it's going to be super hectic. We'll hardly be able to see each other-"

"Actually," I interuptted, pointing at the duo, "You two have known each other your entire lives. Probably lived with each other just as long. You really think your parents won't force you to hang out this weekend?"

He paused for a second to let that sink in. "Damn," he groaned, once again pausing at Julie's upset look. "Hey hey hey, don't be like that. I said damn because our parents are gonna force us. Annalise has a point, you know. They've done it tons of times before. I like hanging out with you, you know that."

"You just don't like being told that you have to." The girl nodded in understanding. "Neither do I."

"It's like when you feel helpful and you get ready to wash the dishes, but as soon as your mom tells you to do them, you don't want to do it anymore, right?" I chimed in again. The duo looked at me oddly for a second before nodding.

"That's accurate," Julie grudgingly admitted, crossing her arms ever so slightly tighter. "He's right. You do have a point... unfortunately."

I nodded, trying hard not to show the (probably) obvious relief that was clear on my face. "Good, we're actually in agreement. I'm still pissed off at you, though."

"Good. I'm still mad at you, too."

I smiled tightly at her. "Well, I guess that makes two things we agree on. Now, come on, truce? At least until Parents Weekend is over. Deal?" I stuck my hand out for her to shake.

Relunctantly, (and surprisingly,) she did. We shook hands and ignored the amazingly relieved Jason. That worked until we ran over and crushed us in a hug. Wiggling away didn't do anything, unfortunately, so we just had to suck it up until he released us.

"Isn't this amazing? We're all friends again!" he grinned, glancing between the two of us girls.

Warily, we smiled too.

******

The next morning, I woke up to something being thrown in my face.

"Whoever just threw that at me, I'm going to punch you in the face."

"Wake up!" Julie said, probably rolling her eyes. My own eyes were hardly open due to me being mostly asleep, so I really couldn't tell. "We're being kicked out of our dorms."

I shrugged and snuggled into my bed even harder. "Oh well, that's nice."

She groaned. "Annalise, wake up! I'm serious! We're really being kicked out!"

"The lease isn't up, we own it."

"What?" she shook her head. "We don't have a lease or an apartment. We have a dorm room, which we're currently- damn it, open your eyes!"

I closed my eyes tighter. "No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Yes, please!"

"No thanks. We can get kicked out later. Just tell them I said no."

I could hear the beginning of a laugh in her voice as she replied, "It doesn't work like that! We only have a few hours before we need to get up."

"Leave me alone!" I whined out, gripping my pillow tightly, only to discover that it was next to me. Oh, yeah, that was probably the thing that was flung at me. "I need my beauty sleep."

"Darn right," Julie muttered. "Move, you lump."

"It's so early. So, so very early. It has to be at least ten in the morning right now."

"Incorrect. It's seven."

"Seven?!" I stared up at the ceiling, groaning in anguish. "Why do you hate me?"

"I'm mad at you, but I don't hate you."

I lowered my blanket just slightly to give the other girl the stink eye before returning to my blanket nest. "I wasn't talking to you."

"Then who were you talking to?"

"The world," I mumbled. "I was talking to the world. It hates me. It hates me for making me get up this early."

"You're so dramatic," she sighed. "Chill out. And get up. If we aren't out by noon, we're gonna get thrown out of here."

"Wait." I opened one eye. "Wait. We're actually getting kicked out?"

Julie nodded and moved to sit down on the edge of the bed, moving carefully so she wouldn't knock too many blankets out of place. Mainly because there was so many blankets that she probably couldn't actually see where I was. I doubt the girl would want to sit on my arm or something.

Guess I'll never know.

"What, did you think I was kidding?"

I nodded.

"I wasn't kidding! We have to be out of our rooms from ten until eight at night. It's stupid, but I don't want to get kicked out. Since I was getting ready, I thought I'd do you a solid and let you know what's going on..." her voice suddenly did a weird flip flop. It went from hard and annoyed to soft and sweet. Unfortunately, it was gone before I could really process it.

"Come on." She then gently threw blankets aside in an attempt to actually find me so she could drag me out. She was successful.

"Fine," I groaned, swatting at Julie's arm, "I'm out of bed. I'm going, I'm going. Hand me my phone, please? Don't throw it or toss it. I'll make you pay for it if you break it."

Nodding, she listened and handed it to me. Miracles do exist.

I turned my phone on and was, to my surprise, immediately hit with an onslaught of texts and missed phone calls. The top of them was Andy.

Andy Anderson (I know, what kind of name is that? Why would my parents do that to the poor kid?) was the one who sent my most recent notification. He also sent the absolute most messages by far. This kid put everyone to shame.

I probably don't even need to explain, but this kid I keep talking about is my little brother.

"Who's the dork?"

Coming up from behind me, Jason rested his chin on my shoulder. "Oh, and I like your hairdo."

The hairdo in mention was my hair that I had put up in braids the other night before bed. The hairties I put in were almost all gone, much to my disappointment. The hair didn't even stay in it's intended braids, it was a poofy mess.

"Oh fuck off," I muttered. "It got messed up in bed. Also, to answer your question, the dork is Andy."

"Ooh!" He belly flopped onto my bed and grabbed the phone from me, putting it in sleep mode as he turned to look at me, kicking his legs up and down as he did so. "Soooo," he teased, "Is Andy your boyfriend?"

I scowled, shaking my head. "No. And you know that."

He nodded and smirked. "Oh heck yeah I do. Anyway," he pressed a button on my phone and watched as the screen lit up, "This kid keeps texting you, which you probably already know. You have... Wow, you have twelve messages from this guy. What's up with that, for real?"

I grabbed the phone back, pressed Andy's contact, and typed out a quick hello before tossing the phone somewhere on the far opposite end of the bed. Naturally, it lit up with a new notifications as soon as I threw it away from me. "He's my little brother."

Jason hummed. "Okay. Is he coming today?"

"I don't know," I shrugged, "Since somebody took my phone before I could scroll up and read my messages. As you pointed out, there was a ton of them there."

"That's true. Anyway, you better meet up with that brother today."

"Why?"

"Parents Weekend. I thought you knew about it."

"Oh, I do," I told him, "I just don't like it. I don't want to be forced to communicate and talk to my family. It's just gonna end up in a fight like it always does."

I watched as Jason gained a serious look on his face. He kicked his feet again for a second before sitting up and looking back at me. "Is it really that bad?"

I nodded. "It is. I kind of wish I was exaggerating, but I'm unfortunately not. Wouldn't it be cool if I was, though?"

"Yeah," he agreed, glancing around the room to where his sister was packing a small bag that she could use for the day. Then he looked back at me and smiled. "Get dressed. We're going out."

I blinked rapidly. "Ah- excuse me?" I'm sure I looked dumbfounded, but in the end it all worked out. Just watch.

"Not romantically," he reassured, inching toward my closet. "I just want to go out and do something while we wait for our families to arrive. We can go talk."

"Sounds good," I agreed. "I could go for some waffles."

He paused right in front of my closet. "Waffles." He grabbed a shoe that had fallen onto the floor. He pointed at me as he solemnly said, "I knew I liked you for a reason. Waffles are a person's best friend."

I tilted my head. "Wasn't it dogs?"

"Nah, that's a man's best friend. I love dogs, but I prefer cats."

"Okay, I can accept that. Diamonds?"

He shook his head. "A girl's best friend. As a girl, shouldn't you know this? Shouldn't I not know this?"

I shrugged, "Life is weird. Then what's with the person thing?"

"Well," he said, nodding toward my clothes and back toward me as a silent question of permission, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend, which we both now know-"

"I already knew that!" I protested, but my friend simply shrugged, unconcerned.

"As I was saying before I was interuptted, diamonds are a girl's best friend. Boys are a man's best friend. We need an in between here, don't you think?"

"I... guess so?"

"Good!" he then reached over and threw a shirt at me. I caught it one handed and unfolded it to see that it was a bright purple tank top with sequins all over it. Yeah, I wasn't wearing that on an outing right before I saw my parents for the first time in months.

"Next," I told him, throwing the shirt back. "Try again."

Jason nodded and caught the shirt. He then went back into his search. "Okay. Do you have a particular outfit in mind?"

"Nope. At this point I was supposed to be asleep, but your sister dragged me out of bed."

"Lovingly!" the aforementioned sister yelled out from where she was digging through her dresser.

"Lovingly?" I asked. "I thought you were mad at me for some reason."

"Oh, I am. But that doesn't mean I don't love you!"

Let's just ignore the way my heart fluttered when she said that, okay? Thanks. Moving on now.

"Love you too!" I replied sweetly and as casually as I could. I don't even want to know how much I failed. But, judging by the fact that her face remained unchanged, all was fine.

"Does a bright orange shirt work?" Jason yelled out, holding up a bright orange shirt that I still, to this day, do not remember owning or ever buying. If someone could tell me where it came from, that would be nice.

"Ew, no!" I yelled back. "Grab a dress or something! If you don't know what those are, I swear-"

A dress hit me in the face before I could finish my sentence. Fun.

Jason reappeared, this time happily sitting on Julie's bed. "So," he began innocently, hands clasped as he stared at me. "So, that's a dress, right?"

"He knows what a dress is, what idiot doesn't know what a dress is?" Julie chimed in, shaking her head. She looked over at me and stick a thumb back at her brother. "He's trolling you. Ignore him."

I picked up the dress and held it up. "Kinda hard to when he throws clothing items at me."

"Hey, I got you what you asked for!" he protested. His protest would have been more effective if he wasn't smiling. "Does that dress work for you, Your Highness?"

"I might hit you," I informed him. "When there's no witnesses, of course."

"I'm so scared," he deadpanned. "Also, you never answered me. Is it good? Can we go? I'm starting to get hungry, since your dumbass brought up waffles."

"Okay, okay! I'm gonna go change. Check my phone for me please, let me know if I have any new notifications."

As soon as I got done, my phone was handed off to me. Jason was making a face at it, which definitely wasn't promising.

"You have... So many notifications. So many."

"How many?" I asked, going to check.

"So. Many."

"That's not a number, you know?"

"I don't have the verbal capacity for that many text messages. How does one little boy send that many messages? And how does he have a phone in the first place? Why would anyone give a kid that small a phone? I'm assuming he's a little kid, by the way. Correct me if I'm wrong."

I shook my head, both at him and at my phone. "Tragic. You're not wrong."

"Hey!" he replied. "It's tragic that I'm wrong?"

"Yes," I deadpanned. "It's a crisis. How will I survive? The world may never know. I, myself, will never figure it out." Then, a second later, I raised a finger in the hair, pretending to have an idea. "Oh! I thought of something!"

"What?" he groaned.

"I can just watch you fail at something else! Maybe yoga. Ooh, or basketball! Creative writing?"

"Why do you want to see me suffer and fail?"

"Oh, I don't want you to fail anything important," I reassured him. "I just mean if you and I get in a competition over those things, I want you to crash down hard."

"That's really competitive of you... but yeah, that's fair. I'd totally do the same to you."

I grinned. "Good. I'm glad we're on the same page."

******

The little diner that we chose to go to was full to the brim.

"I can't believe that we went here before with Julie. It looked so different."

"We went here less than a month ago, what on Earth are you talking about? I'm confused."

"I'm saying that it's so full right now. It's just- oh, shit."

"Oh shit?" I echoed, confused. I strained my neck trying to see whatever my friend was looking over at. To my disappointment, it was just a few kids that looked a bit familiar. Must be from school... which made sense. I mean, look, it was Parents Weekend and almost no families were actually going to stay on campus. Why do that to yourself?

A waiter came by to take our order, to which we both, in unison, yelled out an excited "WAFFLES!"

Then, much calmer than I for a second or two, Jason cleared his throat, swirled his drink around, and tried again.

"Sorry. What we meant to say is that we want waffles. Please and thank you."

The waiter nodded and left.

"Now!" Jason rubbed his hands together gleefully. "We can talk. Hey, did your younger friend sibling person ever say if he was on his way or not?"

"Uh, I don't know." I digged through my bag and eventually found my phone. I pulled it out and quickly checked the time- it was already nine in the morning. I hated being up that early but was very glad that classes got cancelled due to the Parents Weekend.

"Yeah," I finally announced, smiling. "He's coming. So are my parents! Isn't this great? I didn't think that they liked me enough to come!"

"Okay, that makes sense, but what I don't get is why wouldn't they like you?"

"Because," I sighed, "I don't always listen to them. I'm not some perfect little kid like Andy is."

"Andy. How old is he, anyway? You've never mentioned him."

"Ten years old," I revealed. "And I've never mentioned him because I don't have much to say. I'm not home, remember? I'm here, hours and hours away from home, sitting in some old diner waiting for my parents to come. I just hope this doesn't end in a huge blowout... I don't actually want to leave you."

  
"I don't want to leave you either. But hey, cheer up!" He placed a smile on his face as he looked over at me. He then slid a root beer float across the table to me- wait. When did he get that? Was I really so distracted that I didn't even notice he ordered it? "Maybe it'll all be fine."

I shook my head. "I doubt it. But maybe. Hey, here's a good thing... If I'm even considering a 'maybe' then you really have an influence on me. I trust you, use your superpower wisely."

Jason chucked and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I didn't know that being your friend is a superpower. Does it come with a cool cape?"

"Nah. You have to go to the costume shop for that. It's the perfect time of the year for it, you know."

"The most wonderful time of the year," he said happily. When I shook my head, he frowned. "Yes," he said, before I could even get a word in edgewise, "Most wonderful time. No discussion is allowed."

"Good luck with that one," I scoffed. "I love you, but you're stupid. The most wonderful time of the year is Christmas, not Halloween... and it's not even Halloween yet! It's barely October!"

"It's Halloween now."

"Why?"

"Uh..." I watched as my friend visibly faltered. "Because I said so! And so do other people!"

"Halloween is only one day!" I argued, crossing my arms.

"HALLOWEEN IS A FULL MONTH."

"NO- oh."

Very much unfortunately, our argument was interuptted by someone clearing their throat nearby. We thought it was because we were being too loud, which, yeah, we probably were, but one quick look up quickly proved otherwise.

Standing, or rather, looming, in front of our table was a tall brunette woman with a well kept purse in one hand and an old cell phone in the other. She kept her hood up despite the fact that we were in a diner and everyone could easily see her and her face. She was definitely staring at Jason and I, trying to decipher why I was at an old diner with a boy's arm around my shoulder, why I looked half homeless despite the fact that I was wearing a nice dress, and why I had been screaming my heart out in the aforementioned old diner.

Behind her was a man. He was around the same build and height as the woman. He, unlike her, took no issue in showing his face for the world to see. He had on ratty old jeans and a blue t-shirt with a black jacket placed over it. It might have been been a leather jacket, but I couldn't tell since he was behind the woman.

And, finally, there was the last member of their little group. The littlest one was standing up in the front, close to table. He wore a bright orange shirt with some baggy blue jeans. The shoes he had on were decorated with race cars and... turtles? Oh, they were Ninja Turtles. The kid wore very familiar Ninja Turtle shoes. Familiar... why were they so familiar?

Anyway. Time to move on, now. The kid was tugging on his father's (probably) leather jacket, mumbling something about waffles. That made sense, since I had been waiting for my waffles when the family trio showed up.

The longer they stayed there, the more obviously confused Jason was getting. I didn't know if he was going to say something to make things worse, or if he was going to say something amazing and really helpful like he did with Julie and I, but I really don't want to chance it. So, with the high risk of confusing my poor friend even more, I jumped up out of my seat to face the little kid, who had been staring at me the entire time, barely stopping to blink... which was kind of freaky, but there's no time to get into that right now.

"You're not having my waffles, Andy."

Ladies and gents, this is Andy Anderson, (I'm so sorry little bro,) my little brother. Despite the fact that his name is pretty much cursed, he's generally a good kid. A good kid that wanted to steal my food, but still.

"But please? I haven't eaten a thing since we got here?"

"Oh yeah? When did you get here?"

"Two hours ago!" he whined sadly. "I need food! Like, right now! Right this second, even!"

"Well, if you want fast and quick food, you should have gotten drive thru, not a busy diner. Your actions have consequences."

"Oh please!" Andy suddenly scoffed, a far cry from the desperation he had literally seconds before that. "We both know you're gonna give me some waffles anyway."

I simply shrugged, not denying that. It isn't a good idea to lie to a kid that knows you.

"Hey!" Jason finally interuptted. (Hey, I'll give it to him- he had a lot of patience. I'm very proud.) "Can someone explain what's going on here?"

"Yeah," I signed, motioning toward the three people standing around us.

"This is my family." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is 4500-5000 words... ALSO KNOWN AS MY BIGGEST CHAPTER EVER WRITEN


	8. Parents Weekend pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annalise, Jason, and Julie's families meet.

"Hi!"

An energetic Andy quickly got over his shyness, which makes sense, since is incredibly social. I can't say that I'm quite the same, but it's always nice to see how quickly he makes friends. I imagine that's a trait that he'll always have. 

"I'm Andy!" 

I leaned over, placed a hand on his shoulder, and shook my head at him. 

"That's already been established, bud."

He paused. Then he shrugged and went, "Oh. But not to them! Are they with you, too?" He then pointed over at a trio of people that were headed our way. I didn't really recognize the two adults, but I was pleased to see that the teenager there was the one and only Julie. 

I was just pleased that since my parents would have other adults to talk to, it would possibly be less awkward.

"Hey again!" Julie bounced her way over toward us, her red and black outfit mixing well with the red and black checkered floor. She grabbed a menu and happily squeezed into one of the booths. Luckily for me, the one she chose had her sitting right up next to me. And yeah, even then, I was still mad at her for blowing up on me because of my stubborness, but that doesn't mean my crush went away.

It really didn't. Just trust me on that.

"Hey!" I greeted, smiling. "What brings you here?" 

"Oh, I'm here with my family. Oh, and before you ask, because I know that you're gonna, yes, I did get kicked out of the dorm. These two," she stuck a thumb over at her parents, "Were late." 

They both nodded at that. 

"Anyway, now we're here!" she flashed a bright, noticably fake smile over at me as she threw an arm around my shoulder. "This is my good friend Anna!" 

Before I could scoff at how bad of an actor she was, Jason and Andy did it for me. Once Jason noticed Andy doing the same thing he was, he high fived him.

"You're like a mini me! I love it!" 

"We look nothing alike!" Andy retorted, smiling. He was definitely pleased by my friend's comment. I know this for a fact, because when Jason got distracted, he turned to me and mouthed 'he is so cool!' When Jason turned around again, Andy was peacefully coloring on the kids menu he was handed. 

Nobody questioned it.

"Anyway! Aren't you going to introduce me?" 

I didn't know who had spoken, probably Julie, but I gave a (hopefully) through answer nonetheless.

"Alright everyone!" I began, "Listen up, I'm about to explain who's who!" I then nodded over at Julie. "That's Julie Mathers, and that's her brother Jason." They both nodded and looked down at their menus again. I then pointed over at my parents. "That's Anaya and Andrew Anderson."

Neither of them looked up. Andy, on the other hand-" 

"I'm Andy Anderson- Mom why did you name me that, you know what our last name is- and I'm ten years old! I'm really excited to be here! Hey, Julie?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Anna mentioned that you have a younger sister! Where is she?" 

"On her way. She was at a sleepover, she's getting dropped off here. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to meet you. Uh, she doesn't know who you are yet, sorry. I didn't know that you existed until just a few hours ago, your lovely sister never mentioned you." The words 'never mentioned you' was spoken with a bitter voice and a cold smile. When she saw her brother glare at her, she forced herself to calm down.

"Right. Sorry about that, kid."

Andy had gone from smiling eagerly to glaring mercilessly. "That was mean. Don't be mean to my sister."

"I wasn't," she replied calmly, "For one thing, I wasn't even talking to her, I was talking to you. For the second thing, I wasn't being mean. I didn't call her any names."

He crossed his arms. "That doesn't mean you aren't being mean. You can be mean in lots of ways. Just last year I was playing in Anna's room with her- we were playing The Floor Is Lava- and I jumped from one pillow to the other and I accidentally hit one of her paint things... what's it called?" 

"A pallete." I reminded as quietly as I could so I wouldn't interrupt the boy's story. He pointed a finger at me, nodded vigorously, and continued.

"Yes!" he exclaimed. Then, much calmer, he nodded and went, "That was much better, thank you. Anyway, back to the story. I accidentally stepped on one of her palletes' and broke it! Then I went to go get a rag to help clean up, but I completely forgot about it! By the time I got back, it was all cleaned up and I didn't help a bit. That's a mean thing." 

"You made it up to me though," I reminded my brother once again. "You know that, right?" 

"And... what?" His voice trailed off as he looked over at me in confusion. "I don't remember that!" 

"Well, I do. I remember the day after that, you went out and bought me flowers." 

Andy frowned as a big chorus of "Awws!" went out of everyone around the table. Well, except for the two of us, of course.

"The flowers were fake!" Andy yelled out with a huff. The "Awws!" only seemed to grow louder and stronger. 

"It doesn't matter if the flowers were fake, it was sweet!" I shouted back, louder than he could. It was definitely an impressive feat, considering the fact that ten year olds have really good lungs. 

"Anyway," one of the adults said loudly after clearing their throat. After closer inspection I realize that the aforementioned adult was my mother. "I think it's time that we get going. Mr. and Mrs. Mathers has agreed to a friendly game of sports." 

"Are we watching it or playing it?" Julie asked, face preemptively screwing up in disgust. Jason had a neutral expression on his face, while Andy and I were frowning. 

"What kind of sports?" we all seemed to ask, whether or not it came out of our mouths or just showed on our faces.

"That hasn't been decided yet," my mother answered impatiently. She then looked Julie and I's outfits over as she shook her head. "That won't do. It's too nice. We can find you something better, come on, let's go."

The majority of us, adults included, groaned at the prospect of spending all this time and energy on sports that none of us actually cared about, except for maybe my mom.

However, since the last thing we wanted to do was cause a major scene in public, we sucked it up and agreed.


	9. Hotness Is Not Fun.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just fluff. That's it.

A few hours later, we walked away from the basketball court with brand new bruises and cuts.

"This was a bad idea," Andy groaned. He closed his eyes as he walked, making faces as his bare knees hit the grass. "Never doing this again."

Several of us groaned tiredly in agreement.

"Wait, quick question," Julie began, running forward a bit so she could get a grip on Andy before he could dramatically crash into the ground, "Why's there so much grass around a basketball court? Is there a reason for it?"

When nobody had an answer, she kept on talking, simply changing the subject.

"Yeah, didn't think so. Okay! So... wanna play twenty questions?"

"Nobody wants to do that," Jason replied, shouting down at her from the top of the hill. He was near the back of the group, walking near all of the adults. He was so far away that it was impressive he even heard his sister say something. "Nobody wants to do that," the boy repeated, jogging down to her. "We're all completely wiped out."

He proved this by tiredly wiping at his forehead as soon as he finished talking. "It's so hot out here, I think I'm gonna die."

"No, you won't," I rolled my eyes, motioning around at where other people walking past us were wearing jackets. "You're just hot because we just got done working out."

"That took forever!" a squeaky voice from the front of the group proclaimed loudly. "My legs are going to fall off!"

I was glad to notice that I wasn't the only one rolling my eyes at the kid.

"No, they aren't!" Julie yelled back, smiling as she shook her head. "That's cute," she said, ruffling the little kid's hair. The little girl quickly reached up to fix it, glaring.

"Don't do that," she scolded lightly. "You almost made my hair tie fall out!"

"Oh, yes, the horror," replied my roommate's deadpan voice. "Your life would end if you lost your precious hair tie. I told you earlier to bring some extra ones with you, did you forget them?"

"No!" her small voice called out defensively as she quickly shook her head up and down. "Of course not!" She sat down in the grass, kicked off her shoes, and began looking.

"They aren't gonna be in there!"

"You don't know!"

"Why would you put them in your shoes?" Jason asked, kneeling down to help his little sister find what she was looking for.

"I don't know! Maybe they... fell in there?"

"How would they-" he cut himself off mid sentence and settled for mouthing a quiet "why" instead.

After a whole half hour of looking, (and by that time everyone was annoyed and ready to go to laser tag,) the child eventually stood up with a huff, holding up one little hair tie. She threw a fist in the air triumphantly as she grinned.

"Oh, finally," Julie breathed out, relieved. "You do this every single time we go somewhere new, Emily. Please learn to keep watch over your things, it would take much less time."

"That first part sounded really specific," I remarked. Not looking back at me, the blonde shrugged.

"Well, if we go somewhere that she likes or that she's really familar with, she'll just leave some of her hair things there. It comes in handy when we go to our aunt's house, for example, but when we go to a grocery store, it's super inconvenient. You get what I mean?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I do. This one," I pointed over at Andy, who looked over at me in confusion, probably wondering why I was suddenly talking about him, "Used to do that all the time when he was younger, but his version was little toy cars. He used to have a lot of those one or two dollar ones that he could just stick in his pockets and go. It was really funny, but when he turned ten-"

"I'm ten right now, remember?" he asked me, but the way he spoke it, it came across as him just saying it as a statement. I nodded and continued talking.

"-Like I was saying, when he turned ten, he decided he was too grown up now to carry those around all the time."

"It's true," he agreed, then jogged forward a little so he was walking beside Emily again, "I'm super old now." He then puffed out his chest, then in a (clearly) exaggerated example of confidence, the boy grinned and said, "I'm kind of a big deal. Being ten automatically makes you cool, it's just the facts of life."

By the look on the little girl's face, she was totally falling for it. "Really?" she asked, bright blue eyes shining. As she glanced around and her eyes found her older sister's, she eagerly repeated the question.

Looking at me for guidance, Julie hesitated. "Uh..." At my nod, she simply agreed with the girl. "Totally!"

At that confirmation, Emily turned back to face Andy again. "I'm almost ten! When I turn ten, does that make me cool like you?"

"No," he said seriously, watching as the other child's face fell. Once it did, he grinned and shook her shoulders. "Sike! Duh, of course it does! It makes you even cooler!"

"Does it make me cooler than I am now or does it make me cooler than you?"

He paused for a second or two, pretending to think. Then he shrugged and yelled out a loud, "Both! Why not both?"

Emily gave a happy little hum and gave Andy a hug.

"You're so nice!" she yelled out. Once she let him go, she spoke up again, voice perfectly determined.

"Look," she said sadly, (or as sadly as she could pretend to be. The kid was little and a terrible actress.) "I'm seven years old now! It'll take me forever to be ten... but hey! As long as I have you here, you'll rub off on me and I'll be awesome by association!"

The older of the two kids stood there and stared for a few seconds before scooping the girl up in a huge hug.

"You're already awesome," he whispered. "I love you."

Okay, so that was the cutest thing I've ever seen happen in my life.

I knew right then and there that those two would be friends forever.

Nothing would break them apart.


	10. Adopted.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annalise gets some really important news and rants to Andy about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WILL make this hit 40k (that's a novel right?) Or 50k words. Trying to speak that into existence.

Parents Weekend ended with a bang... Or several.

... Let's just say it was an interesting few days. Looking on the bright side of things, I guess it could have been worse...

I could have had a ton of homework due. Anyway, let's not dwell on that any longer.

"You've got to be shitting me! It's Parents Weekend! As in, a weekend with multiple days, not just a few hours from yesterday! As in, not leaving your only daughter just to go play golf! You play golf all the time, I'm sure you can spare just one lousy weekend to spend with me. Like I said: I'm your only daughter. You might as well just spend time with me while you can."

My parents hardly looked at me. They didn't seem even the slightest bit concerned that I was mad at them.

Then, as I moved forward to start yelling, something changed. I don't know for sure what it was. I can't pinpoint it, but I know for certain that I saw my parents exchange a confusing glance before looking away.

The look they shared was full of panic and fear... which is not them. It's not them at all. Other than that moment I'm mentioning now, I think I've seen them afraid maybe two other times...

Ever.

So, when these next words left my mother's mouth, I'm sure you can forgive me for running away from her.

"You're adopted."

******

Adopted. Adopted? What? Where did that even come from? Why not tell me earlier? Why not just tell me when I was a little kid? I had so many questions that I needed to get answered. When I found my way to Andy, who had apparently been staying somewhere in town, I started ranting to him. I didn't actually expect to have answers in the first place, but he was good to talk to, even though he was just as confused as I was.

"I'm so sorry, what?"

I shook my head so quickly it made me dizzy. I then paced around the small hotel room so fast that I was practically running. I probably would have been if the space wasn't so tiny. "I don't know! I was yelling at Mom and Dad- don't follow my lead, please don't do what I do- and they just kind of... blurted that out. I mean, adopted, what? I'm just... so confused."

"You and me both, sister." He raised a juice box in what I assume was solidarity. I didn't even bother asking where he got it. (The juice box, not the solidarity, of course!) As he lowered it, his face turned unexpectedly serious.

"You do know that you're always gonna be my sister, right? No matter what?"

"I was sure hoping so," I replied, smiling slightly as I moved forward to ruffle my little brother's hair, "But it's always good to hear. So, uh, apparently I won't be able to see you for a month or more... since you, Mom, and Dad are leaving early and all. That really blows."

"I know, right?" he nodded. "But!" he raised one finger up in the air to join his exclamation, "But! But I'm staying here in town."

"What? No you're not."

"Uh... yes, I am."

"No you're not!"

"Yes I am!"

"No!"

"Yes!" Andy screamed, hands flopping wildly in the air. As he settled down, he frowned at the juice that had fallen on the floor. "Yes," he repeated calmly. "Mom and Dad are keeping me here. They're gonna go home, though."

I laughed briefly until I looked back at his serious face. Then, worryingly, I realized that he might not have been joking.

As if it was written all over my face, (and it might have been,) he spoke up again. "I'm serious!"

Slowly, as realization dawned on me, I sidestepped the stain on the floor and sighed, flopping backwards onto the bed. "You're really telling the truth right now, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am."

"You're just gonna be left here by yourself? I'm pretty sure I could actually call-"

"No," he protested calmly, waving me off with one hand, "You don't need to do that, you know. I don't want to get them in trouble."

"But-"

"Nah," he said flippantly, "They're leaving me with Emily."

"I- what- just shipping you off with another family? Another family who already has three kids? Who already are way too busy for the kids they have? What? Is that even legal?"

"It probably wouldn't be, but they're coming back."

"Andy-" I began with a sigh, but the ten- year- old cut me off before I could finish my sentence.

"No, they are!" he told me. "They told me so."

"I'm sure they did," I agreed. "When did they say they were coming back for you?"

"Next week. I'm gonna have a sleepover with Emily for a few days, then I'm going home."

"Oh thank goodness!" I exclaimed in relief, practically deflating as I yelled. "I thought they were ditching you."

"Ditching- no! Of course not! They would never do that to me- or you! They wouldn't do that to us, I know for a fact."

"What fact is this?"

"I believe that they would never ditch us like that. Anyway," he said, quickly changing the subject, "What's new with you? Other than recent news."

"My friend is mad at me and she won't confide in me anymore. I feel like she's hiding something from me. My other friend, her brother, is beyond sick of us arguing and he keeps trying to solve it, but he keeps failing."

"Maybe it has something to with their parents," he said, hand resting under his chin. "The thing that your friend is hiding, I mean."

"Maybe. Their parents look about two steps away from divorce. Everytime anyone did... well, anything, they would bicker about it. Doesn't seem very loving to me."

"I agree," Andy said with a nod and a shrug. "But we don't have to worry about it."

"Why?" I asked curiously, turning my head slightly to look at my brother better.

"It's never going to be our problem."


	11. Make Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annalise and Julie finally begin to get along again. The reason why is not good.

My fifth week of school, Parents Weekend was finally over. Exactly a week after it ended, Andy decided to visit me.

"What happened to 'never going to be our problem?'"

Loudly, Andy sighed. He threw his arms up in the air exasperatedly as he paced around my small dorm room. "I sincerely thought it wasn't going to be!"

"Not to be rude, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong."

"No," he shook his head, "I swear I was convinced that this wouldn't be our problem."

"That's not what I mean," I told my little brother calmly. "You thought this wouldn't involve us. That's what you got wrong... but you clearly know that already."

Within the last week, Julie and Jason's parents managed to find new issues to pick a fight about. Back then, I found it strange how people could just argue that freely, seemingly over nothing. I'd learn to understand it myself later on, of course, but that's not the point here.

Jason had virtually abandoned his own room in favor of Julie and I's. His reasoning had been that he 'needed to be with his sister' and that he 'absolutely couldn't be alone right now.' The fact that he already had a roommate was completely ignored by our little trio.

"Hey," a familar voice called out as Julie poked her head through the door. It was open, luckily. Can you even imagine the disaster there would be if it wasn't? "Can I come in?"

At both Andy and I's nod, the blonde walked in and flopped backwards onto her bed. The girl frowned, clearly unpleased by something, as her head hit one of her pillows. She quickly sat up, picked up the aforementioned pillow, messed with it a bit, and put it back. She didn't immediately lay back down, though.

"So, I heard you two talking about my parents right before I walked in."

"Oh shit," I accidentally blurted out. Looking over at her shyly, I quietly asked, "How much of it did you hear?"

"How long were you standing nearby?" Andy asked his question at the exact same time I asked mine. He was much louder than I was, though. He always has been, so that's probably not going to change anytime soon.

"I heard quite a bit," my friend revealed. "You guys don't need to get involved. You aren't even involved yet, I'm not sure why you think you are."

"But we are! In case you haven't noticed, I'm your best friend," I said, smiling tightly, "Which means I stick with you when things get complicated... which, considering the fact that you haven't left campus at all this week, means that things are going wrong." When she looked up at me briefly to shoot a puzzled look my way, I swiftly spoke up again so I could finish my sentence without being interuptted. "And if I know what that look is about, which I'm sure I do, I'm absolutely still your best friend, even if I'm still annoyed with you for getting all huffy and puffy on me."

"When did I get, in your words, 'huffy and puffy' on you?"

"When I went with Amanda to that climate change protest, remember? You were so concerned that I was going to get arrested or worse-"

"Expelled!" Andy yelled out from his position on the floor. The boy casually picked up a juice box (where does he keep getting those without me noticing?) and shrugged as Julie and I gazed at him. "What? Why are you looking at me? Just keep arguing, you clearly need to get it all out of your systems."

By some miracle, both of us forced out a halfway convincing "We're not arguing!" Even luckier, we managed to speak in unison. You don't sound that connected to someone you hate, right? That would be so weird... and oh look, here I am, getting off topic once again. Ignore that last part, thanks.

"Okay," Andy raised his hands in a clear show of surrender, "I quit. I'm not going to win here, so, you're right. You two are just having a nice, calm, friendly discussion."

"There you go, you got it right that time," I allowed. My little brother made a face at me but didn't argue the point any longer; he simply pulled some things out of his backpack and began coloring.

"Anyway, clearly things aren't going amazingly at home. Things are going too great at home for me, either, so I know what you're feeling. Here, come sit with me." I patted the spot beside me on my bed patiently, hoping the blonde would join me. Reluctantly, a few seconds later, she actually did.

"You're on the planning committee for the school dance, aren't you?" I'm sure now that the non sequitur came across as odd to the rattled up girl, but she accepted it gamely, only looking at me with a briefly baffled look before shaking it off.

"Yeah, I am," she answered, nodding. "What about it?"

"You haven't been going to it. I'm sure there's meetings for it, and you haven't been there. Which, quite frankly, is such a shame, you don't even know."

"Uh, how is that a shame? You don't even like to dance."

"You do. Other people do. Plus, you have good taste. The last thing I need is for people like your brother to vote for- or suggest- some horrid theme like 'space cowboys' or 'power rangers.'"

I tensed up slightly, having expected a huge protest from the Power Rangers super fan that was Andy Anderson. Looking down at the floor, however, it was clear that the little boy either got distracted and hadn't heard me, or got so caught up in his coloring book and juice boxes that he didn't care. Either one of those things boded well for me.

"Will Under the Sea work?"

"Don't tell me!" I yelled out, shaking my head. Andy looked over at me for a second, but once he quickly realized that there wasn't a problem, he went back to what he was doing.

"But-"

"No! No, don't tell me!" I put a hand over Julie's mouth. I did it just long enough for her to get the hint. I then let her go as she watched me, smiling. "No," I continued, quietly protesting.

"You gonna let me speak now?" Julie asked, clearly amused. Before I could answer, she went on.

(Yeah, that was probably for the best.)

"Okay, why don't you want to know the theme I have in mind? Don't you want to know so you can dress accordingly?"

"Okay, for one," I shook my head rapidly, hoping to dramatically convey the disappointment I was pretending to feel, "Does anyone our age actually speak like that? 'So you can dress accordingly?' Come on!" Then, smile fading slightly, I got back on track. "You're missing the point."

"I must be, because I'm kind of lost here," she admitted instantly.

"My point is that you're missing out on everything because you're staying on campus. You're only going to class and coming back here to our dorm room. I know that you're upset about your parents, and probably even a little bit disappointed in them, and trust me, I get it. Nobody except the little one on the floor even half way gets it. You can't just isolate yourself, though. You probably haven't noticed, and I've certainly never written about it until now-"

"Uh, why would you write about it in the first place? Who would you write it to?"

"I've seen the way your eyes light up when someone mentions dancing or the school dance or anything in between. Anything in between, or anything related to dance, you light up. It makes you happy, it's special, and you probably haven't even noticed that I've noticed."

"That's because I don't exactly talk about it," Julie mumbled into a pillow. "It's not important," she said, but it sounded muffled.

"Is it important to you? Is it special to you?"

No response.

"If it is, then it's important. Look, you can't just miss things like that just because your parents are fighting. So are mine, so are other people's, but we don't go skipping things. Please try not to blow everything and everyone off. Please, for me?"

"I'm not going to listen just because you say 'please, for me?'"

Determined, I didn't let that stop me. "Please, for me?"

A loud groan greeted me in response.

"Y'know, she's not gonna do what you want, you should know this by now," Andy remarked. When I frowned, he simply shrugged and left me alone again. Smart kid. When I looked over at Julie again, the blonde looked smug. However, the look didn't last.

"I get what you're saying," she informed me softly, "And I'll think about it."

"I really thought my plan would work," I jutted out my lip, pouting slightly. That plan didn't work, either. Time for the third one... you know, if I even had one in the first place. Maybe it was time to admit defeat.

"Oh well," I shrugged, dropping the clearly exaggerated and fake pouting. "At least you'll think about it."

Well, at least I got that much.

It's better than nothing.


	12. Under The Sea= Drama.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Homecoming dance is right around the corner! Amanda tells a story to the whole gang about last year's drama filled one.

My sixth week of school, everyone was practically buzzing with excitement. Except for Amanda and I, at the very least.

Why, you might ask? (You also may not care... but I'm not in charge of your opinions.)

The Homecoming dance was coming up right around the corner.

"Hey, do you have the answer to question twelve?"

Leaning over my shoulder to look at my paper, the redhead shook her head. "Yes and no."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means yes and no."

"Thanks," I rolled my eyes, "You're really cryptic sometimes, you know that?"

"I do know that. Oh, and your wrong?"

"I get that you have a different opinion than I do-"

"That's not what I meant. I meant that yes, I do have the answer, but no, you aren't getting it. Better?" she asked, making the last word of her sentence come out smugly. "I'll help you find it, though. Here, scoot over."

Once I did so, she took my English textbook and laid it out on the grass in front of us. She then dog-eared the page we were on. Once that was done, she flipped back a few pages to find what she needed to show me. "There," she pointed at the page number, "It's this one. Read it, and I'll explain it if you still don't understand it when you're done, okay?"

Determined to get the question right this time, I got to work...

...Only to get interuptted fifteen minutes later.

"Hey! Wanna get some coffee?"

"She's busy, Jules," Jason pointed out the obvious. By that I mean he quite literally pointed at Amanda and I's books. "The two of them are working on English," he informed, tone of voice respectfully quiet.

"Aw, man. I was gonna go over Homecoming dresses with her."

"I don't have money for a new dress," I mumbled quietly before going back to my work.

"Thrift stores exist!" Amanda explained cheerfully, as if I had no idea that thrift stores were an option.

"Let's just finish the assignment, then we can go over girly stuff."

"It's not girly!" Jason, Amanda, and Julie protested all at once.

"It's not girly until you make it girly," Jason said defensively. "And I found a really nice looking suit that I'm gonna buy after school today."

"What color is it?" Amanda asked curiously, twirling her pencil around as she looked up at the boy.

"Black! What color is... whatever you'll be wearing? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming it's a dress?"

"You're assuming correct. I'm sure I'd look great in a suit, though. Especially a white one."

"That would look amazing on you!" Jason gushed. He then put his backpack down and sat on the grass beside Amanda. "What color is your dress going to be when you get it?"

"White!" she informed him with a grin, quickly matching his odd enthusiasm. I had no idea he liked dances that much... and I thought Julie was the dancer in that family! Guess I was wrong... anyway. Amanda ran an unsteady hand through her hair. "I'm so excited for the dance! Everything always happens there!"

Feigning disinterest, I picked up my textbook and put it up closer to my face. "Oh?"

"Yeah!" Amanda yelled out happily, dropping her pencil down beside her abandoned textbook. "Want to know what happened last year?"

I shrugged, "I'm guessing you want to tell me? I mean... if you want to, go ahead, I'm not going to stop you. Especially not if it makes you happy."

"It does! So I can tell you then?"

"Yeah sure, go for it."

"Okay!" she eagerly clapped her hands together. "Last year, the most popular couple- I know what you're about to do,.don't roll your eyes- anyway, like I was about to say, the most popular couple in school went to Homecoming. The most popular girl, Angella, was absolutely stunning."

"What was she wearing?" a random bystander asked. When our whole group turned to look at her, the small black-haired girl blushed and looked down at her black and white shoes. "I'm so sorry about that. I didn't mean to listen in on your conversation, I swear. I was just walking by and I heard one of you talking about something wild that happened last Homecoming and I kind of got carried away... I'm so embarrassed right now, I won't interupt like this again, I promise! I'll just go now, sorry again!"

"No, wait." I glanced up from my textbook and over at the small, short girl. She went to school with us, which obviously makes her a high schooler, but the black-haired girl barely looked any older than twelve years old... poor thing. What a shame.

"You don't have to leave!" Amanda told her, patting the grass somewhere nearby her. "Come sit with us! We love making new friends. We don't bite, I swear!"

Jason moved his hand in a 'so-so' type of motion. It was also a 'maybe.'

"We're totally nice!" Julie exclaimed, slapping her brother's hand down. "Ignore him!"

"I don't bite and she doesn't bite but," he pointed over at me then, "This one might."

Whipping around to face him, I shook my head. "No I don't." Looking over at the new girl, I tried to smile and look as inviting as I could. "Please ignore him. He has no idea what he's talking about, he's probably just trying to scare you off."

The small girl laughed nervously as she cautiously sat down, slowly joining the rest of our group. "Uh, okay. Can I please hear the rest of the story?"

"Absolutely," Amanda nodded. "Alrighty. So, the most popular couple showed up. The girl showed up in this stunning, royal blue ballgown. Her date, or boyfriend, technically, but he was in a dark green, seaweed colored suit. Green! Seaweed!" As I made a face, my friend laughed. "Okay, I totally get that. A green suit sounds hideous but it looked amazing."

"I'm with you there, it sounds horrible," I agreed.

"Oh, definitely," the new girl nodded. Jason and Julie nodded along with her.

"I bet you can all guess what the theme of Homecoming was," Amanda said. I made yet another face. That's the second one already... wow.

"Homecoming has a theme? I thought that Homecoming was the theme!"

"Nope," Julie said. "I was here last year, can I guess?"

Amanda shook her head. "No, that's cheating. Those two, New Girl and Annalise, are allowed to answer. Go for it!"

Not even having to glance at each other, we both (somehow) answered in unison.

"Under the Sea."

She nodded and shot finger guns at the both of us. "You got it! Anyways... so, apparently, at the dance, it turns out that Angella's boyfriend had not only been cheating on her, but he never liked her at all! And on the complete flip side, he found a sister!"

"...Found a sister?"

"Yes! Okay, so, he met someone at the dance... who he later learned is his younger sister. Homecoming was legendary here before that, but now people are absolutely hyped for it! I can't believe that it's only a few short weeks away! I'm so ready for it!" Unfortunately enough, Amanda turned her attentive gaze on me. "So, what about you?"

Nervously, I asked, "What about me?"

"Are you ready for it?"


	13. Pillow Fight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a fun pillow fight. Someone almost asks someone else out. The 'rule the school' plan gets cancelled.

"Get up before I make you!"

I sat up, rubbing at my tired eyes as I did so. Letting out a loud yawn, I looked over and glared at my friend.

"What do you want? Please don't tell me that you're going to make this a new habit of yours."

"Make what a new habit of mine?" Julie smiled as innocently as she could. "I don't think I know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do," I groaned miserably, throwing my top blanket off of me. Once that was off, I reluctantly sat up.

"The dance is coming up!" she yelled. The non-sequitur threw me off a little bit, but I shook my confusion off easily. I'm sure I've said much odder things than that before. In fact, I'm almost positive of it. Andy can back me up on this... anyway.

"What about the stupid dance?" I inquired grumpily. "Did I ever say I was even going to that?'

"Well, no..." from where Julie stood confident and strong, I could easily see her start to falter at that. I guess she didn't think of the fact that dances were never my thing. They still aren't, really, but I can be convinced....

"But, um, I was wondering..."

"Yeah?" I tilted my head, interest piqued. She never tends to stutter. If she does, it's either something really good that she's nervous about, or something really bad that she's panicking about. "What's up?'

"Will you-"

Whatever she was going to say (I had a pretty good idea of what and I had to physically stop myself from squealing, which is annoying, I know,) she quickly got interuptted. Not by me, though! Neither of us had realized until then that one of us had left the bedroom door wide open, and standing there was an energetic Jason. Jason held a crumpled up note in one hand and what looked like a latte in the other.

"Guess what, motherfuckers?"

Through gritted teeth, Julie turned to greet her brother. "What? What is your deal?"

"What?" he asked, all of his energy staying with him as his face switched to show his confusion. "What's up? What's wrong?"

"I... we," she motioned over toward me, indicating how (accidentally, I swear,) close in proximity that we had gotten. Instead of jumping back like I was thinking of doing, I mustered up some courage and stepped closer, wrapping one arm around her shoulder. Trying to ignore that, (and failing, judging by the small smile on her face,) she looked back over to Jason. "-Were in the middle of something."

His confusion stayed. Looking back now, I realize that it increased a ton.

"Wait... did I miss something?"

"No! But we were busy, so can we please wrap this up? What do you want?"

Not deterred in the slightest from the blonde's hostility, he simply grinned and unfolded the paper in his hands.

He held it up proudly as he announced, "Guess who got a date to the school dance?"

Glaring mercilessly, Julie looked about two seconds away from grabbing the paper and ripping it to shreds. Instead of doing what she so desperately wanted to, she simply turned her back to her brother and free falled onto her bed.

"Great. Excellent," she deadpanned, forcing a fake smile on her face. "I'm happy for you?"

"Are you really?" he raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her as he moved to sit down beside her. When he got a painful looking nod, he simply shrugged. "Oh well. You'll feel happy for me later, I bet. Are you two about ready to go shopping?"

Julie yelled out a grumpy "yeah," as I yelled out a loud "no!"

"Why no?" Jason asked, turning his focus on me.

I motioned up at my ratted hair, down at my cozy Hello Kitty pajamas (oh sue me, I like cats,) down at my fuzzy pink slippers that I found on sale, then finally I motioned over at my bed as a whole. It was full of messy blankets and haphazard pillows. "Do I look ready to you? Honest question, I swear."

And this boy, this oblivious boy, smiled and nodded. "Sure! I don't see why not!"

Julie and I then shared a look that very clearly had the words 'are you kidding me right now' written all over it.

"I can't go out in my pajamas," I told him as patiently as I could. "Would that work for your 'rule the school plan?'"

"Nah, but that's over now."

"What?" What was he talking about? Why does he just love to mess with me? "What are you talking about?"

"That's over now," he repeated needlessly, adding none of the explanation that I silently required.

"Why? Come on, please let me know! The whole thing was your idea, remember?"

"I don't want to do it anymore. It was easy when school first started, because it was more like a fun hobby to add on the side, but now with tests and classes and, well, panicking, and the school dance, and visits back home, and my parents fighting... it's just something that I don't have room in my life for anymore." After finishing his mini rant, he motioned down at himself, then at Julie, then at me. "Besides, we can totally be unpopular and look good doing it." A sudden smirk warned the teasing that was likely to come. "Well, at least I can. I don't know about you two, though."

We both picked up a pillow and threw it at him without so much as a glance at each other.

"Surrender!" he yelled out, a laugh threatening to cover his voice, "I surrender! Put down your weapons!"

Reluctantly, we did so, but we certainly weren't happy about it.

"You're being boring," I told him with a dramatic huff.

"Really?!" He stared at me exasperatedly, shaking his head. He picked up the pillow that I had dropped. He then held it out at me threateningly. "Do you wanna be next? I could totally beat you up with this right now!"

Not wanting to be hit with that so early in the morning, I made a face.

"Yeah, no. Thanks for waking me up, though."

After hearing that, Julie jumped up and grabbed her purse.

"Now that we're done here, it's shopping time!"


	14. Shop Till You Drop.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang all go Homecoming shopping together and a new player enters the mix.

"That is the most hideous dress I've ever seen in my life. Please take it off, my eyeballs will thank you. Then I myself will thank you."

"You flirting with my best friend over there?" Julie asked Jason, nudging him with her elbow playfully. He simply accepted this and elbowed her in return. This went on for a few minutes until Julie broke it off and stood up. She walked toward me. Once she was standing directly in front of me, she was silent... but that didn't last long.

"No."

"What?"

"No," she repeated slowly. When I stared at her blankly, awaiting an explanation, she sighed and repeated the one word once again, but this time she emphasized it. That really didn't give me an explanation.

"Uh?" I asked her, still staring blankly. "What do you mean no?"

"I mean, no. No as in 'not yes.'"

I threw my head back and groaned. Why couldn't she just be straight up with me?

"Just tell me what you think!"

"Um, are you sure about that?"

"I'm positive!" I nodded. "Just tell me, I don't want to wait! Or even worse- I don't want to have to guess what you're thinking. I'm not a mind reader, but you probably already knew that."

"Okay..." she bit her lip and looked nervously at her brother. "Okay. Well-"

She then took a big, deep breath.

"I think that dress is hideous and should be burned in a fiery... well, fire. It needs to die."

I looked down sadly at the aforementioned dress.

"It's not that bad!"

I got two very unimpressed and disbelieving looks in response. They didn't even need to say a word for me to understand the feelings they had about that statement.

"Please don't buy that," Julie pleaded quietly. She even went so far as to clasp her hands together and hold them up in the air. It reminded me of prayer. Maybe she was praying that I wouldn't buy that one particular dress for Homecoming? I wouldn't put it past her, but that was definitely more of a Jason type of thing. Sure enough, when I looked back at them again, he was mimicking his sister.

"Look," Jason began again once he was finished, "I understand why you... would like this dress, but honey, it isn't doing you any favors."

"It's going to give me nightmares," a voice called out. I turned to see Amanda standing there. I had no idea when she entered the store, but that's not a matter of concern. "Have you ever seen anything so ugly that you started crying?"

Despite the fact that not one of them was crying, all three of them pointed over at the dress I wore.

"Hey," I called out faux defensively, "Hate doesn't look good on you. Now, what do they say about hate?"

"Don't be green with envy-" Julie began, but quickly made a face and seemed to take back the sentence as she continued talking. "Yeah, no, never mind that. I feel no envy at you whatsoever right now. I don't see how anyone could, so let me just try again..." As she looked deep in thought, I stood there in silence to allow her to do so. "Oh! I got one. 'They hate me because they ain't me?'"

"That's worse," Jason replied bluntly. "Why do all of these things have to do with envy? That's the last thing on my mind right now, that's for sure."

"You guys, its probably not as bad as you think," I tried to reassure my friends, but they all seemed to stand firm in their decision to despise the poor garment of clothing. What did it ever do to them?

"Have you actually looked at the thing?"

"Yes!"

"In the mirror?"

"Yes," I repeated.

"Are you absolutely sure?" he persisted stubbornly. He gave me a criticizing look. "Because if you fully saw this monstrosity of a dress, I don't think you would even consider buying it. I like to think that you have a better fashion sense than me. Please, I beg of you, don't let that change now. Resist the temptation. Don't turn to the dark side."

"Geez you drama queen, I get it! I'll go and look at it in the full length mirror. Will that make you happy?"

"Very much so!" The scrutinizing look instantly faded at my words. His facial expression suddenly did indeed seem pretty darn pleased.

So what else could I do? I went to check out what everyone was screaming about. "Be right back!"

I entered the dressing room once again (I forget the amount of times that I went in and out of it) and shut the door. Walking my way to the mirror, my expectations were high. I had sincerely thought my friends were being dramatic just because they could be. They've done it before and they're bound to do it again.

My own face looked back at me as I looked myself over in horror.

They all were right. It was horrible.

The dress I wore was slime green in color, (yes, slime green. No, not lime green- although, I guess that works well too,) with puffed sleeves. (Think Anne from Anne of Green Gables.) The dress also hit at an awkward length. Instead of just hitting my feet entirely or hitting my knees, the length wasn't even close to being precise- it hit way below my knees and brushed against my feet in a way awkward enough that it kept tripping me up... I don't have the best coordination in the world, though, so I'm sure that contributed to the mess. On top of that, the stupid thing had ruffles. They weren't even well coordinated ruffles. It's like whoever designed the dress pointed at random spots and went "Hey, we should put some ruffles right there." Now, because all of that apparently wasn't horrendous enough on its own, the dress had flowers all over it.

All. Over. It.

Now, if it had been just a few, that would have been fine and dandy and well... but this thing was covered in them head to toe. The one good thing I could think about it was that the flowers weren't real. Just imagine slow dancing with your partner, leaning in really slowly for a kiss, and the moment is just showstoppingly perfect... but then, instead of the kiss you both crave, the poor person just gets a ton of dandelions in the face. That would honestly be a nightmare. Like, congrats! You ruined your chances with your cute crush and ruined both of your nights because your dress was the worst dress known to mankind...

I'm beginning to see that my friends may have a point after all.

After deciding that I would most certainly never get that dress (and after imagining at least three different horrible scenarios that would happen if I had gotten it,) I changed back into my regular clothes and walked out, holding the dreaded thing far away from me.

"Good news, guys! All three of you were right!" I placed the green thing down on a nearby sales rack. I was glad to be rid of it.

Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, but that's up to me and, well... Huh. Me once again. Anyway, moving on from that. I quickly grabbed about three other dresses from a rack that (thankfully) did not look like something that came straight from Nickelodeon. There was a red one, a white one, and a black one. Any of those colors would work well with my chocolate brown hair. Slime green... what was I thinking?

Anyway! Dramatic moments over for now! I put the clothes into the shopping cart the group of us were sharing, but once I realized I was only one of the group still standing there, I decided to go searching for them.

"Anna! Over here!"

I hadn't even been looking for any more than five minutes when I saw a hand sticking up in the air, waving, as I heard Amanda's voice shout out to me from across the store.

"On my way!"

I ran over there and was pleased to see that everyone else was with her, along with an unexpected fourth member. (It was four people in total if you're excluding me, which I am.)

"Hey, who's this?"

"A friend," Jason answered vaguely. He motioned over at the newcomer, who wasn't paying any attention to anyone that wasn't Jason himself. The girl kept fiddling with some clothes that she held in her hands. She seemed content to just ignore everyone else in the group, especially when Amanda started sharing her opinions on... well, anything, really.

"Yeah right, he's so lying!" Amanda, who was ready to share some more of those opinions, spoke up. The newcomer, who didn't seem too keen on saying her name, simply sighed and buried her face in a Cashmere sweater. I know that feeling very well.

"Hey," I said to the girl, gently taking the sweater away from her, (to which she gave a sad groan before just grabbing something else to hug,) "What's your name? You seem new. I've never seen you before and Jason's never actually said anything about you before, so... Hi?"

"Hi," she tried to say, but her greeting got muffled by the small stack of fabric she was hoarding. "How are you?"

The words didn't come out any clearer the second time, either. I sincerely couldn't even understand her, so I simply stared at her in silence in hopes that she would catch on. She blinked at me for a little bit before she realized why my eyes were on her still.

"Oh," she mumbled before reluctantly removing her face from one of the sweaters. "Hi again. I'm assuming you didn't hear me?"

"No, I heard you alright... I just didn't understand a word you said. Sorry about that?"

"No, don't be, it's my fault." She placed one of the clothing items into the cart, staring longingly at it for a couple brief seconds before turning back to face me once again.

"Right," she cleared her throat and stuck out her hand for me to shake. "Introductions time?"

"Sounds good. My name is Annalise Anderson, but my friends call me Anna. It's nice to meet you." We then shook hands.

"Aliyah Saunders. Nice to meet you, too."

"So, you're Jason's friend? How long have you known him?"

"Oh, we grew up together. I used to live out of town for the past few years, but now I'm back! Another one of my friends that goes to his school invited me to the Homecoming dance. It's only in a few weeks, right?"

"Right, about that," Julie suddenly said, staring down at her phone with a frown on her face. "Shit."

"What? I don't think the dance will be-"

"No, that's not what I meant." She shook her head and pointed down at the phone in her hand. "I just got news."

"What is it?" I asked, leaning over her shoulder so I could see what was going on. A bit to my disappointment, and most definitely to Julie's, the new news meant a workload increase for her.

"What's going on?" Aliyah asked nervously.

"The date of the dance is changed. It's only in two weeks now."

"That's so soon!"

"And so I repeat: shit," Julie said. We all nodded in complete agreement with that.

"I guess I need to hurry up and find a dress," Aliyah said with a disappointed tone of voice as she headed off somewhere. Grumbling slightly, (despite the fact that we did indeed intend to get dresses and a suit or two,) we headed out to get that taken care of.

...So, naturally, since we wanted to get everything done quickly, it took us more than five hours to even come close to having everything we needed for the dance.

"Please tell me this looks good," I said tiredly as I stepped out of the dressing room. I did a little spin and sighed. "We've been here for too long. I mean, yeah, I know that there's five of us now, but I sincerely wasn't expecting us all to take around an hour each just to find something worthwhile."

"You look good," Julie told me, sounding just about as relieved as I felt. "That dress is super pretty. You're rocking it."

"Good. It took me a while. I lost count of how many dresses I've tried on today. I guess this one is worth it."

The dress that was worth it in my eyes was a short, dark red dress that hit my knees comfortably. It had a few sparkles and bit of pizzazz, but the colors were all muted and calm. It was definitely a good pick.

"I'm getting it then," I announced. "What did you get? Oh, please tell me that you bought something. If I stay here for another hour I might actually go insane."

"Who says that you aren't already?"

I was about to reply to Julie, but as Jason walked out of one of the dressing rooms wearing a really nice looking suit and a smirk, I realized that it was him who spoke after all.

"Nobody did, but if I'm insane then you are too."

"How does that work, exactly?"

"You're insane by association."

"Does that include me?"

This time the person that spoke was the new girl Aliyah. She stepped forward in a long, royal blue cocktail dress. The 3/4 quarter sleeves would have made me look stuffy and old, but for this girl it did the complete opposite- it actually seemed to make her look younger than she actually was.

"Well? Do I look okay?"

Julie, Jason, and Amanda, (who had actually finished first out of all of us,) gave her an approving and friendly thumbs up. I did too, just a few beats slower. I would have been the first to do something- in fact, that was the plan- but something about that girl struck me as frighteningly familar.

It could have been her dark brown eyes that seemed to match the color of my own perfectly well, it could have been the way the royal blue color of her dress really meshed well with the ending tips of her hair, (which was a pretty light blue color, while the rest of her hair was brown,) and on that note it could have been her hair, too. My chocolate brown hair was remarkably similar to hers, and besides the blue at the end, the only real difference was that hers was long and stunningly well-kept.

I didn't know it at the time, but it was none of the more obvious things.

What I did know at the time, though, was that I had no idea who that girl really was.

I needed to find out.


	15. Will You Go To The-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie once AGAIN almost asks Annalise to the dance, Annalise gets curious about Aliyah, and Jason and Amanda get locked out of the dorm rooms.

"Well, fuck."

"I feel that." I glanced up from my magazine to look up at my friend, who had just walked into our dorm room. "But what's going on? Is it the dance again?"

"No," she shook her head. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

Instead of immediately opting for a good answer that would properly explain her sudden woe, she turned around, backwalked a bit, and collapsed dramatically into her bed.

"I visited home. I was only there for a few hours."

"Okay?"

"And naturally, I couldn't just say a quick hello to my parents and be done with it. Emily and Andy- they say hi, by the way- had to watch the three of us get into a screaming match."

"Yikes." I winced sympathetically. "That really sucks. Couldn't the kids have just left the room?"

"Unfortunately no. They had to be in the room since we were all about to go out for dinner."

"I can't imagine that that ended well at all."

"It was pretty much a nightmare gone wrong."

"But..." I blinked slowly, "If it was a nightmare, doesn't that mean that it already went wrong?"

"Well... yes, but still."

"What did you guys even get so mad at each other over?"

"Oh, you mean this time around?" She laughed bitterly. "Well, the school dance, apparently. I think that they just wanted to pick a fight."

"You just said that it wasn't the dance-"

"Oh, right. Well, forget that I said that. They got really mad at me for my date choice."

"Wait. Date? You got a date?" Feigning happiness, I perked up. I sat up straight, smiling. "Who? Do I know him? Is he nice? Oh, please tell me he's nice. I just want you to be happy, you know that."

"Yeah, they're nice," she seemed to have to force herself to say it. Huh. That seemed really odd... but before I could open my mouth to say anything about it, she had already moved on. "Um, can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can," I answered sincerely. "Always. What is it?"

"Well, I wanted to ask you something. I've been wanting to do it for a while now, actually, but I haven't been able to get the words out."

"What is it?" I repeated.

Julie seemed to pause for a couple of seconds. She then took a big hop off of her bed and gracefully landed in front of me. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to speak.

"Will you go to the-"

With every word she spoke, she got just a bit closer to me. I wasn't about to let that moment pass me by, so I began moving even closer than she did. I wasn't one hundred percent sure of what she wanted to ask me, but I had a pretty good idea, so you best believe that I was going to scream my agreement... but we got interuptted before she could even finish her sentence.

In entered Jason, Amanda, and the newcomer Aliyah, with Jason leading the pack. The leader of the group had quite a bit of pep to his step that day, looking more ready to sing than he was ready to speak, but he couldn't even get a word out.

"Fuck you!" Julie yelled at her confused brother, who had done nothing but open the door and pause as a flying pillow landed in his face.

"What? What did I do?"

"Everything!"

"All I did was show up! You can't get mad at me for existing, that's just ridiculous."

"You're just ridiculous."

"What did I even-"

"Oh!" the sudden exclamation came from Amanda, who was staring at the little space that remained in between Julie and I. (Julie jumps back) "Shit! Did we... um. Did we interupt anything?"

"Oh, no," Julie drawled sarcastically. She rolled her eyes so hard I was proud (and confused) about how they didn't actually seem to hurt. If I rolled my eyes as hard as she did then, it would have given me a major headache. Since neither of us were old enough to actually go out and buy some headache medicine, it was good that my friend remained completely unharmed. "Two girls that are very good pals get so close that their faces almost touch could only mean totally innocent, best friend activities."

"I mean, it could..."

"Did it look like I was over there getting ready to make her a friendship bracelet from my little crafting kit? Did it look like I was going to braid her hair?"

She ignored me quietly questioning her if she even knew how to braid hair.

"No!" Jason yelled out happily in response to the blonde's rhetorical question. "It looked-"

Softly, Aliyah, (who I hadn't even realized had ever entered the room in the first place,) spoke up. Her voice was so quiet and hesitant that I thought I heard her wrong at first. By the tilted head and confusion on the others' faces, I knew that it wasn't just me.

"If I had walked in on this without any prior knowledge, let's just say I wouldn't exactly know that you're best friends... I would be thinking of something more." She had a sudden look of realization on her face. "Oh no! We really did interrupt something, didn't we?"

Through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw, poor Julie was clearly trying her very best to hold onto her patience. "Yes."

Wait... did she really want to do what I was about to do?

"Anyway!" Jason interuptted my thought cheerfully. He then slung an arm over Amanda's shoulder. "I thought that since Amanda here is still relatively new to the group, she should come and hang out with us again soon!"

Poor Aliyah! I can't imagine that felt very nice to hear.

Amanda looked down at Jason. "Why do I feel like you're plotting something?"

"Because I am."

He unwrapped his arm from around her shoulders and stepped a few steps backwards to where he was facing her more directly. He then digged around in his pocket for something. Pulling something small out, he held it up above his head. It was his phone, which had the Spotify app open and playing a slow Taylor Swift song.

He threw it behind his head recklessly, as if he had no concern over where the electronic would land. Luckily for him, (or maybe unluckily,) I was the person who caught it. Amanda stared blankly at the boy who then had his hand held out toward her, likely hoping she would take it. "What's this?"

"My hand," he answered the clearly obvious question. "Will you dance with me?"

Looking as if she would rather do anything else, she took his hand and let him lead her around the small dorm room.

"I think we should leave them alone..." Aliyah sat down on my bed beside me as she whispered. "I'm going to head to the library. Wanna come?"

"Yes, but also no. I want to talk to you, actually."

Just like Amanda, looking like she would rather be anywhere else, she stood up and motioned for me to follow her. "Yeah, let's go."

With a quick wave goodbye to our friends, who didn't even notice us, naturally, we headed out of the building.

"So, what did you want to talk about?"

"So, this might sound weird, and forgive me if it does, but you look really familar. Like, super familar."

"I've gotten that before."

"Yeah?" I asked, intrigued. "From who?"

"Uh, some little kid from the Anderson family."

I somehow managed not to stop in my tracks over the sudden news. "I'm sorry, what? Did you just say Anderson? What did the kid look like?"

She gave me an undescribable look, but luckily she answered the question despite that. "Uh, small, really short. He had to have been a little kid, way younger than us. You said that you're sixteen?"

"Yes."

"Right, okay," she nodded in acceptance over that fact. "This kid looked maybe eight or nine years old, could be ten years old at the very most, but that's unlikely. Uh, brown-ish blonde hair, I think. It seemed to be a mix of both colors instead of just one."

"Eye color?"

"Like yours, brown. Come to think of it, like mine too."

It had to be Andy. "Okay. Now, finally, it's time for the one question I probably should have asked in the first place."

"Sure, go for it," she said agreeably. "Oh, by the way, we're not going to the library anymore. I need to hit a grocery store so I can get a few things. There's one right near where we are now, I believe. Does that sound good?"

"Definitely. Did the kid say his name was Andy, perhaps?"

"You don't seem like the kind of person to say perhaps," she said distractedly, frowning as someone bumped into her. She shook it off, pulled me along, and kept going. "But yeah, actually, that name sounds familiar. Why?"

"Do you remember my name?"

"Of course I remember your name, Annalise."

"Great. Good to know, but what's my last name?"

"You're probably either testing me or you have amnesia somehow, but I'm going to answer you anyway. The truth is, I have no idea. We were all really busy looking for clothes when we met a few days ago, remember? I didn't really latch onto it, why?" When I hesitated, she gasped. I can't tell if it was sincere or not, even now.

"Hi, my full name is Annalise Anderson. Nice to meet you."

"Wait, what?" I could practically see her brain working. "Wait. Anderson? You and Andy are related, then?"

"Yes."

"Then do you know why Andy keeps trying to dig into my family history?"

"Yeah." I tried to shrug nonchalantly. "He wants to help me. I didn't ask him to though, just so you know. It's just his natural instinct, I guess..."

"Okay, but what's he helping you with?"

"Well, uh..." My next words, unfortunately, came out in one quick rush. "I'm-adopted-and-I'm-trying-to-find-my-real-family."

She paused. "...Well then."

"Well then?" I repeated. "I... kind of might need more info than that."

"Yes, I know... just let me think." We walked into the aforementioned grocery store and began wandering around. Aliyah briefly glanced at the prices of certain items before tossing them into the small basket that she held. We stood (and walked) around in silence for a bit before one of us opened up a mouth to speak.

That one of us was Aliyah, who looked a bit nervous and even a bit scared. I'll easily admit to scooting over a bit closer to her so I could hear what she had to say better.

But, unfortunately for me, before she could even get one word out of her mouth, a phone rang. I was fully ready and willing to ignore it completely, but it wasn't mine.

"I'm sorry, that's my phone," Aliyah apologized sheepishly, rummaging through her bag for the cell phone. "Oh, it's Jason," she told me after checking the caller ID. "I wonder what he wants."

"Didn't we just leave twenty minutes ago, tops?"

"Yes," she groaned out, staring down at the electronic as it continued to ring. "Dang it. I think I have to answer this." She then pressed the green button to accept the call, sighing as a loud "HEY!" rang through from the other side.

"Hey, Jason. I'm kind of in the middle of something... is it okay if I just call you back later when we get to Annalise and Julie's room?"

"No," he denied. "This can't wait that long. I don't know how long you'll both be out."

"Why would you need to know, though? Is there a problem?"

"Yeah, actually. Um... when will you be back? Annalise is with you, does she have a spare key on her?"

"Yeah," I hollered, nodding in approval when the other brunette simply turned on the speaker. "Oh, that works. Do you need a spare key right now or can it wait for a couple of hours?"

"No."

"No to which question?"

"The second one!" He yelled anxiously.

"You're being really cryptic, you know? What's the problem that you're stressing out over?"

"Um... I got locked out of our dorm rooms."


	16. It's A Date.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie and Annalise finally begin figuring things out. FINALLY.

"Annalise, we need to talk."

Well isn't that something fine and dandy that every girl wants to hear at one o'clock in the afternoon right before she rushes off to take a math test? I was already stressed out and those five words certainly didn't help matters any.

"Yeah, okay. About what?"

Julie stood in the open doorway but didn't look like she was going to make any move to come into our room. "So... you know that we're best friends now. I know that I've only known you for a little over a month, but it's been an amazing month. I wouldn't change a thing. I love you."

"That's... good to know... I love you too?"

"I need to ask you something. It's something I've been trying my best to ask you but apparently everyone in the world has a problem with us two being alone for very long."

"That's true," I agreed. "What do you need to ask me? Oh, before you do, we should probably lock the door."

"Nah," she shook her head. "Jason and Amanda are still locked out of the dorm rooms, remember?"

"Yeah, that's true. We should probably make this quick, then."

"No promises," Julie smirked, "But I'll try my best."

She moved into the room then. She inched her way toward her closet. She somehow did all of that without even taking her eyes off of me.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for something. Sit tight."

Not knowing what else to do, I obeyed. I didn't really have any high expectations for whatever it was that she was doing in there, so I'm sure you can imagine my confusion when she walked out with a whole ass bouquet of flowers.

Was it a big one? No. Just a few flowers, but that wasn't the point. Do I hate flowers? Usually, yes, I do. I wasn't so much impressed by what she got as I was over the fact that she got them in the first place.

It really is the thought that counts sometimes.

"Uh, what's that for?"

"You." She walked over to me, away from the closet, and held them out to me. Completely flustered, (could you really blame me?) I took the flowers and held them close to my chest.

"Thank you so much, they're beautiful... but why did you give them to me?"

"Fuck it," she mumbled out. I correctly assumed that wasn't meant to be my answer, because she spoke up again right after that. "Will you go to the dance with me?"

So that was why.

"I-"

I hated to see the way her face suddenly fell.

I hurried to keep talking, but she had already beat me to it.

"I understand if you don't want to go. If you don't want to go as a couple or as my date, maybe we could just go as friends since neither of us have a date? It doesn't have to be romantic, I swear! It's just that you're my best-"

"Hey. I don't think you noticed, which makes sense and all, but I never actually rejected you."

Miraculously, the blonde actually seemed to halt at that. A slow going look of realization spread across her face before she eventually nodded. "Oh, that's right." Hope blossomed and bloomed over her at her own words. "You didn't. I never actually let you finish, did I?"

"No," I shook my head. "I think you'll like what I have to say, though."

"Please speak, then. I'll shut up now."

Nodding, I smiled. My smile came across as soft and mushy, which it always seemed to be around Julie. I had absolutely no way of controlling it, so I guess I have to just accept it and move on.

"I would absolutely love to go to the dance with you."

The hope on her face switched entirely to something that was almost certainly glee. "Wait, really?!"

"Yes!" I laughed as Julie rushed into me, crushing me in a hug with such a ferocity that I briefly wondered if she took karate or something. Maybe boxing? Hell, maybe even dance, but I already knew the answer to that one. All I knew back then for absolute certain was that the blonde was strong. So, so strong. Anyway, that's besides the point... if I actually had one to begin with, that is.

"I'm so happy! Wait." Julie suddenly pulled away from me. She broke apart from the hug with a steadily growing frown. "Wait. We need to talk a bit more."

"Awww. I don't want to. I want hugs. We weren't done there!"

"I want some more too," she replied patiently, "But we have to finish talking."

My oh-so-elegant response was a loud groan. "Fine, if we must."

"We must." She ignored me as I groaned some more.

"Fine. What do you we need to talk about?"

"Are we going to the dance as one another's date or just as friends?" Wow, she didn't waste any time right there. She just ran straight into it.

"Um. Well, what do you want to do?" I asked, completely stalling, since I was pretty sure where she stood on that.

"No, I'm not answering that yet."

"Why? Talking was your idea, you know."

"Yeah, I'm fully aware of that," she nodded, hair falling out of its well done ponytail and ending up all over her face, "But since I asked first, you answer first."

"Oh, we're playing this game, huh? Alright." I made a face at the prospect of that conversation getting drawn out, but eventually I went along with it. What else could I do, you know? "That's fair, I guess."

"Okay. So what's the answer here?" Julie asked a tad bit impatiently. She looked about ready to start tapping her foot or start pacing around the room.

"Okay. My opinion is that... it should totally be a date."

She sounded much less impatient when she spoke again, and her bright smile was back in its rightful place.

"It's a date."


	17. Kiss kiss baby (gonna miss miss baby)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie and Annalise finally do what they’ve been waiting to do... almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why do I always update around or after midnight

“Do I look okay?” 

“Well, duh.”

”Duh?” Julie looked over at me curiously as she exited the tiny bathroom nearby us. “I kind of need more than a simple ‘duh,’ here.”

”Well, that’s my input.”

”Come on,” she smiled, “I need an honest opinion here. I don’t want you being sweet-“ when I frowned at that, she quickly backtracked. “Well, after this you can be as sweet as you want. I’ll gladly welcome it.”

This time, when a small smile graced my face, she continued with her own growing bigger.

“But seriously. Please?”

”I’m giving you my honest opinion!” I exclaimed. Then, a bit calmer- “You look cute. Really cute. I swear.” I raised one hand in the air and held it there for a few seconds. “Scouts honor.”

”Were you ever even in the scouts?” Julie  asked, her tone of voice indicating how amused she was becoming. “Because I don’t remember you mentioning that before.”

”You caught me, darn.” I faux pouted right after I spoke the last word. Julie fondly rolled her eyes at me and didn’t seem to think that sentence was worthy of a verbal response. 

“Anyway,” she spoke, moving right on with her life, “What do you think of this color on me? Bright, dull, just right, too much? Give me something here.”

That time, I was the one to roll my eyes, even though it was more fond than anything, just like hers was. “Isn’t it too late to be having a midlife crisis over your dress?” 

I knew for a fact that it was too late. The dance was around a week away, and the last thing either one of us needed was to stress out when we A: couldn’t do anything to fix our clothes that late in the game, and B: We were tired and probably going through a caffeine withdrawal, which was never a good combination. For whatever reason, us two decided that pulling an all-nighter when we didn’t have to was a smart idea. Here’s an unnecessary spoiler alert: It wasn’t! We had wanted to spend more time together, especially since we were riding off the high of finally agreeing to go to the dance together, but that naturally came at the cost of our energy and sanity. 

But yay, no third wheeling! 

Seriously though, we were awake at three in the morning, (we somehow hadn’t gotten caught for staying up that late,) and she had already begun stressing out. Can’t the stressing out wait until we were both filled with caffeine? We desperately needed it- like I said, withdrawal. 

“Chill out, Cinderella, your dress is good. Trust me.”

For some reason, that didn’t seem to reassure her in the slightest. Instead, it seemed to make her just a tad bit irritated. 

“Really?” She asked, one hand on her hip, “Have you ever even seen the dress?

“Uhhh...” I paused momentarily as my mind totally blanked. Did I see the dress? Was I about to lie to her and say that I’m sure I did? I did a combination of these things. “Yes, I think I did.”

“Really?” she repeated, still and unmoving. “What color is it?”

Think! Think! What color was it... What colors can I rule out? Red? Yeah, red was the color of my dress. She made a face at the slime green one from the other day, but who wouldn’t? Maybe it was white... No, she’d be too nervous about anything spilling on it or making it dirty, and black just isn’t her. Dark blue? Royal blue? ...No, I think Aliyah had a dress of that color... 

It could be light blue. 

“Light blue. Sky blue?” I said, but unfortunately the last two words of my small sentence came out as a question instead of sounding as confident and sure as I wanted to be. I watched as my crushes’ face slowly fell into a small frown. She then took her hand off of her hip and let it fall to her side. (She let her hand fall to the side- not her hip, by the way!)

“You suck,” she said with a slight frown. “I’m almost one hundred percent positive that you’re just blindly guessing, but I have no way of proving that, so...”

“Was I right?”

When she sighed, I grinned in victory. 

“I was so right,” I said smugly. Julie frowned a bit less and rolled her eyes once again, but it was very blink and you miss it. As soon as she was done, her smile was back in its rightful place.

“You win. What’s your prize?”

“I get a prize?”

“Yeah, but it’s not going to be very much.”

“What are my options?” I asked. “Is it in this room?” I wondered, jerking my head around in hopes I would see something cool. I’m sure I looked like a little kid snooping around for her Christmas presents. 

“I have two dollars... or you can choose the super secret mystery option,” she said, walking a bit closer to me as she said that. Either she wanted to be that close for a completely unrelated reason, or that girl had an agenda... even back then I decided to go along with the second option. 

And what do you know? I was right.

It was the second one. 

“Uh, I don’t need your money,” I told her with a small smile. She seemed to significantly light up as I said that, and I knew that I had somehow said the right thing. I hadn’t even known what the wrong thing would have been, but with Julie so close to me as her silky blonde hair gently hitting me in the face, it was pretty much the last thing on my mind.

She leaned in, I leaned in... 

I was really positive that we were going to kiss.I’m not kidding you or exaggerating when I tell you that our lips were mere inches away from each other! We were both so ready... then, suddenly, Julie yelped, shot straight up, rushed to smack the lights so they would shut off, and quickly hid underneath her covers. The blankets turned and swirled when she suddenly took a nose-dive into them. I glanced around the silent room and came up with nothing that could have caused such a reaction. 

Confused, I followed her.

“What are you doing?” she whisper-hissed.

I shrugged; or, I would have, but the action would have caused me to slam against her elbows too.

“What are you doing? What was that?” I asked her quietly. I didn’t know what was going on but I was determined to just follow her lead and hope that worked out well. 

“Someone across the hall just turned their lights on. I can’t tell if it’s a kid like us or if it’s someone in charge of keeping everyone in their rooms.”

“We never left ours. Why would they care about us?”

“It’s four A.M and we we’re not only very awake, but our light is still on and we haven’t exactly been quiet tonight. Plus,” her voice trailed off just a bit before she picked it up again, “Uh, well, you know...”

“I do not know.”

She motioned vaguely over at me, but the inside of the blanket was dark and we didn’t grab a flashlight on the way down, so I couldn’t quite see where she was motioning.

“Uh, well... kissing. You know?”

“No, I don’t know,” I breathed out, while I was very aware of what she meant. I just wanted her to tell me straight forward what she wanted.

“We’ll get caught if I do anything now,” she informed me, “But I just want you to know for future reference...”

She fumbled wildly and eventually caught my hand. She gave it a quick squeeze, and, satisfied, she then let it go.

“I want to finish where we left off.”


	18. Grades At Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annalise talks about what the grades are like at homecoming and Aliyah comes to a realization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao does anyone care about this

Two days to the school dance, the entire school was alight with excitement.

Okay, so maybe not  everyone,  but pretty much everyone. And how could you blame us? Everyone had a reason to be giddy. For one pretty universal thing, (for all of us away at boarding school, that is,) studying is hard work, we hardly got to see our parents, (oh, what a shame,) studying and schoolwork was pretty much just public school intensified, times ten, with several other added subjects, and, come on now, who doesn’t love to have something fun to do?

Plus, on top of that, the kids from each grade had different reasons to get excited. The beginners- the newbies, the babies, the tiny tot children- I’m talking about the freshmen here, if you couldn’t already tell. Anyway, like I was saying, the freshman had their own reasons to get excited. It was, for most of them, their first school dance  ever.  It was going to be  huge,  totally the best one that there ever  was.  (Side note: I’m not actively trying to make fun of the freshman, this kind of stuff just... comes out. I’m not very good at stopping it, as you can clearly tell. I’m sure that those kids are perfectly nice and fine and all of that... but it’s time to get back to what I was saying.)

It was their first dance and all, and generally at Amalia Academy, all of the kids there relish that one small bit of real kid freedom that they can get. A lot of the time, we all wish we could just go back to public school or something like that, but we never really can. Now on to the sophomores.

At this point, they’ve established a central friend group of sorts. It might not be amazing, it might not be big, it might not be long-lasting, but, hey, at least it’s there. This group has likely already seen at the very least one or two dances. They know enough to not completely embarrass themselves on the floor, which is much better than the youngest kids can say. At this point they most likely have drivers permits, and they might even be able to drive to the school on their own. It’s a dream for lots of people, I’m sure. Another perk is that at this point, the sophomores are no longer the newbies. They (somewhat) know their way around the place, which is always helpful. 

Now, last but not least, it’s time to introduce the perks juniors get during the Homecoming dance season. (Juniors are last because I’m not a senior, so how can I really write about it accurately? I could try, of course, but it would be really lackluster and really not worth it, so let’s keep moving.)

Ah, juniors. My folk. Them and I are one. We are one and the same. We are all hormone filled, depressed, sad human beings. What perks do we get when it comes to the dance, you may or may not ask? Well, for one thing, we get to drive. For two, we get to go to the prom. Amalia Academy is like any other school- public, private, or otherwise- when it comes to prom. Prom is an even bigger deal than Homecoming is, somehow, even though a smaller amount of kids get to go to it. The thing with prom is that unless you’re either a junior, senior, or get invited to said dance by either of the two mentioned parties, then you don’t get to go at all. That’s it. There’s no exceptions to that. For the third perk, you know how people will go out with their friends after things wind down and end? Yeah, we get to do that too. Anyone else in our school could, but we get to stay out extra late.

Perfect opportunity to do... things. I’m not disclosing, though. The fun part of doing what you want is not getting caught. I imagine the seniors love Homecoming and Prom more than everyone else, though, since they get to go out the longest out of everybody.

Anyway, that’s all of the grades. Other than freaking out, squealing, and just generally being an energetic ball of... well, energy, what else do you think some of the kids were doing two days before the first dance of the school year?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Jason and Amanda were off on a study date that I’m guessing might have less “study” and more “date,” Julie was (oddly) not with me for once, (she was off to dance class, which she had finally decided to join on a more permanent basis,) and, finally, that just left Aliyah and I. The two of us were actually spending time together.

“Okay,” Aliyah said through a mouth full of chips, “I respect your opinion.”

“That’s it?” I asked the other girl doubtfully. “I was expecting more.”

“There is more,” she mumbled out, then held up one finger in hopes that I would stop talking. Realizing that she was just trying to finish eating, I respected her wish. Once she finished the Cheetos and placed the bag they came in in the trash, she cleared her throat and sat back down again. “I respect your opinion, but, respectfully, you’re completely wrong.”

“What makes you think so?”

Aliyah kicked her feet up in the air as she stretched her arms out on Julie’s bed so she could hold herself up better. “Well, look at the pictures again. You’re seriously telling me that you look nothing like me in these pictures?”

She then pointed over at the picture that she had brought over to my dorm room. It was a picture of her as a little girl, only six year old at the time. Her hair was straight as a stick and her eyes were smiling just as much as her face was. Then she pointed over at a separate photo that had me in it, also aged six. Looking back now, I have to admit how... strangely alike we looked. It was almost creepy... 

After a few seconds in silence that included her tapping at her phone, she suddenly dropped it as a look of realization hit her face. 

“Oh my gosh.”

“What is it?”

She looked back down at the photos. “Do you think...”

“Do you think what?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she grabbed my hand and jumped up.

“Come on. We need to talk to someone.”


	19. A Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aliyah and Annalise go off on their own.

“Okay, so... who are we going to see? Aren’t we busy enough already?”

“Yes.” Aliyah replied casually enough. 

“To which question?”

“The second one. To answer your question, we’re going to go see my parents.”

“Your parents?” I asked. “Why?”

“You’ll see.”

Uh, cryptic much? 

“Uh... okay... hey!” I perked up as we exited the main building, pushing through double doors as the wind blew in our faces. “Wait a minute, don’t we have to sign out?”

Wait. What? 

Since when did I even care? I saw Aliyah glance at me out of the corner of her eye, probably confused. Not wanting to stop and think about why I suddenly cared what the rules were, I simply smiled and walked on. Pleased, she did the same, and the conversation was dropped before it was even officially started. 

“So,” Aliyah began after a few minutes of calm silence as we hopped inside her sleek, black, car, “What’s the deal with you?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve heard a lot of things about you.”

Confident as could be, or at least appearing that way, I smirked and, just to be extra, flipped my hair back behind me too. (In reality, I would have done that either way, since my hair was actually in my face at the time. That’s besides the point, though.) “Oh yeah? What did you hear? All good things, I’m sure.”

Aliyah squinted at me, and if eyes could speak, hers would probably be saying something along the lines of ‘cut the bullshit.’ Why she didn’t just open her mouth and say any of that out loud, I still have no idea. 

“I’ve heard that you’re pretty much up for everything and anything, and that you never follow the rules.”

“Oh, okay.” That was a lot milder than I had been expecting. “That’s true. What about it?”

She squinted once again, pulling her seatbelt across her stomach and pressing the other end into its connector. “You’re a lot calmer than the rumors make you out to be.”

I shrugged and moved to put my seatbelt on too. “Not really. I’m just in a decent mood right now.”

“Are you not normally?” she asked, glancing at her mirrors before switching the car into drive. 

“No. Advanced warning, since I have no idea what to expect today, I might be more than a little bit on edge.”

“That’s fine. Okay, so, if you’re not as wild as people say you are, why did the rumors even start up in the first place? Did you ever try to shut them down?”

“Not really,” I shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal. I’ve only been at Amalia for a handful of weeks anyway. I’m still new, so people are gonna talk.”

“That’s... fair, I guess, but I actually heard about you before I actually saw you around school.”

“Wait, what?” I sat up a bit straighter. Now that was news. “What are you talking about?”

“Uh, yeah? Some girl that looks, come to think of it, oddly like me started the news... wait.” After she finished her sentence, she seemed to pause. If she had been walking, I’m sure that she would have skidded to a halt. Even though she wasn’t walking, she certainly was stopping. She suddenly pulled the car into a nearby fast food parking lot and, well, parked it. Aliyah then turned the key and watched as the car shut down entirely. 

“What’s going on?”

“Okay, so, put your face next to mine.”

“Uh, why?” That was a bit of a random request, but okay. She scooted closer and pulled out a mirror from his purse (a little makeup mirror, not a regular sized one. Wouldn’t that be funny?) 

“Look how similar we look. Almost related, don’t you think?”

I pulled back. I snatched the mirror from her hands, closed it gently, and tossed it back into her open purse. “What are you getting at here?”

“Look,” she sighed, “I’m an only child. It’s always just been me, my parents, and the cat that’s been with me since childhood... or so they say.”

“What, you don’t trust them?”

“I do trust them... somewhat. But not about this. When it comes to family, they’re always lying. They wouldn’t let me know that I have a cousin or, heck, even an uncle until I turned eight. That doesn’t scream trustworthy and responsible to me.”

“No it doesn’t,” I agreed. “But, look, just because we look alike doesn’t mean that we’re related. It could be a coincidence.”

Aliyah turned the key and nodded once to herself as the car engine revved up again. Once it did, she turned back to look at me. “Really?”

“Yes,” I persisted lamely. I tried to sound strong and confident, but my words simply came out short, quiet, and even a bit pathetic on top of it all. Yeah, not a great job there. I thought that I could do much better than that. “Totally. It really could be. Copycats and lookalikes exist, you know! I could be your lookalike or you could be mine, or, y’know-“

“Okay, no.” Aliyah’s words, much stronger and more sure than mine were, interrupted me. As she looked over at me, it looked like she was trying her best to not roll her eyes. Looking back at it now, I couldn’t really blame her too much. Even I can (sometimes) admit when I’m being stubborn, even though that time was probably more denial than anything else. The point still stands, though. 

“So, are you ready to meet my parents?” Aliyah asked with a smile on her face and in her voice. Even if I wasn’t, she seemed pretty pleased at the idea of me talking to them. And, well, I was already in the car, and I didn’t exactly feel like walking myself all the way back to the school with the hot sun beating down on my back... plus, I had a hoodie on, which would have been positively no help at all. So, considering all that and more, I nodded my agreement. 

“I’m ready. Let’s go.”


	20. Dance, Dance.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Homecoming dance, Annalise gets some shocking news.

I woke up Homecoming morning with an odd sense of dread.

I absolutely didn't want to start the day. The whole thing just struck me as way more big and important than it actually needed to be- the day itself, not only the upcoming school dance... although, I wasn't exactly all hyped up for that, either.

I pulled my blanket even closer to me, and I only paused for a second or two before I eventually pulled it up over my head entirely. I smiled to myself as the nice, cozy feeling surrounded me. Reluctantly, I moved around just enough to where I could peek one eye out from my comfortable haven.

The big, bright red letters from my alarm clock blared at me, practically silently begging me to get up and seize the day. What if I don't want to, though? The day could go seize itself.

Okay, that might not have made a whole lot of sense, but I'm sure you get the point: I had absolutely no motivation to get up. My blankets were too enticing, and even looking out toward my room gave me more anxiety and uneasiness. Best not to risk it...

"Anna, are you awake yet?"

Shit.

I desperately wanted to ignore the soft, sleepy voice that called out to me, but even in my grumpy and tired state, I didn't think that was a nice thing to do. (Wow, look at me, trying my hardest to be a good person because of my crush on a beautiful girl... wow again. Who am I here? Chuck from Gossip Girl?)

"No," I grumbled out despite the obvious fact that if I was talking, I was clearly awake. (Sleep talkers are indeed a thing, but I had never done it back then, and I've still never done it even now.)

I didn't have to hear or even see Julie to know that she was likely rolling her eyes at me, or at least in my general direction. (But, yeah. Probably meant directly for me, either way. Couldn't really blame her anyway.)

"Yes you are," she replied, a smile in her voice and probably on her face as well. "You answered me, dummy, which means you're awake." Ah, she's a smart girl. "Why are you still in bed, anyway? Do you know what time it is?" Answer: yes. I didn't get a chance to tell her that or try to play dumb, however. "It's already 7:30 in the morning. We have class in thirty minutes. Get up!"

"I know that we have class, Jules. I'm kind of trying to avoid that thought, so I would like to stay in bed right now, thank you very much."

Okay, so ignoring my friend, (crush. Potential girlfriend? Date to the dance, and probably many other things,) probably wasn't the best idea in the world, but maybe sassing and snarking at her when she was just trying to prevent me from being late wasn't very nice of me either. In all honestly, it always takes quite a lot from me to be nice and girly and sweet in the mornings. (Or ever. I'm not always very sweet. I've been working on it, though! Think of this part as the before in a before and after picture. Okay? Thanks. Let's move on.)

So, sighing, and with great effort, I managed to pull my covers back by a significant amount and stand up on my feet.

I looked over at my roommate, who was very much bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to conquer the world... okay, maybe the whole entire world was a stretch, but she really looked that bubbly and confident.

"I don't want to do this," I informed her a bit reluctantly, not wanting to diminish- or worse, even burst- her happy bubble.

"Do what?" Julie, who was actually prepared to go learn things, asked me. She picked up a nearby hairbrush and began gently pulling it through her long, blonde hair. "School? Me neither." Liar, a voice in the back of my mind whispered, "But it's super mandatory. We can't just skip a day because we feel like it, unfortunately. Plus, y'know, we live here and don't necessarily want to get kicked out, so..." She paused a second later, and her hairbrush paused from its position of halfway through her hair. She shrugged. "Actually, who even knows with you? Maybe you've wanted to get kicked out of here all along... but you definitely shouldn't do that."

Knowing quite well that even I would never try to pull off a stupid, potentially dangerous, irresponsible stunt like that, I decided to go along with it anyway. "Oh yeah?" I asked. "Why not?"

She flashed her baby blue eyes at me. Shoot. I'm such a goner. Save me now. Then, as if to either fluster me or drive her point home, (what was her point again? I must have missed it. As you can tell, I was heavily distracted.) she fluttered her eyelashes at me.

"Wouldn't you miss me? You definitely can't go. We would never see each other again."

"I hate when you have good points," I mumbled under my breath low enough that she couldn't hear me. I then raised my voice a bit above a whisper and continued, "Yes, but that's not quite what I was getting at. The... leaving thing, I mean. That wasn't exactly what I was talking about."

Unconcerned, she shrugged and started pulling the brush through her hair again. With the one hand that was unoccupied, she reached forward to flip open a makeup pallette. "Okay, that's definitely a good thing. I was getting worried there for a second," she said, despite the fact that she really clearly wasn't, "So, that's not what you meant. Then, what was?"

I chewed on my lip. How would I explain? Everything I say comes out as messed up gibberish, it seems. "I just... I have a really bad feeling about today."

She looked into a tiny mirror. "Why? The work we're doing today isn't very hard, though? I'm positive that you can handle it. You're smart."

"No," I sighed, clearly on the brink of losing my patience. (I should probably have reined that in a bit better, but hey, I'm human. I make mistakes too.) "I just don't know how to explain it. It's just... odd. I don't want to do any of it. Not the work, not the dance, not the... anything, really. Do you get what I mean?"

I got an answer to that last question really, really quickly. I deeply regretted even opening my mouth. Here's why:

I instantly knew that I made a wrong move when Julie's calm and collected face suddenly did a complete 180 and switched over to a look of pain. Her expression flip flopped back and forth and I tried my best not to just start screaming. I knew that would only make her either more upset or more conflicted, but it was oh so tempting... but I had a sad roommate. Send help.

Help! Undo! How do I undo?! ...Oh, wait. Life isn't a video game. I can't just undo or respawn whenever I want to. (even though it would be a really good idea.) Note to self, I guess?

Julie interrupted my internal screaming and screeching with a sad voice. "So... let me try to get this straight. You... don't want to go to the dance with me?"

"No! That came out so wrong, I swear it." Speaking at all was such a bad idea, why was I so stupid at sixteen- "I want to go with you, I always want to do things with you." When her shoulders loosened a bit and she looked a bit less ready to burst into tears, I kept on talking. (Again, that was probably a terrible idea, but at least that time around I slowed down a bit and tried to think before I spoke.) "You know that dances aren't exactly my thing, right?"

She nodded. "Of course I do. I never thought that you would willingly come with me to one in a million years, but you proved me wrong when you agreed to it anyway. All of our friends are going, and so am I. That's got to be a plus, right? At least a small one?"

I nodded, too. "It is a plus!" I told her as sincerely as I could, "Trust me, it is. I just have a really off feeling, like something is going to jump out and scare me at any moment, or that somebody is going to show up and punch me in the face, or that someone is going to grow a second head or something absolutely insane in the spirit of Halloween-"

"What?"

"- Scratch that last part. What I mean is that I have a feeling that something really bad is going to happen, or something super big and important. Or," I shrugged as calmly and casually as I could, "Or both."

"Oh come on, today will be fine! And tonight will be loads of fun." Julie smiled hesitantly and grabbed one of my hands. She didn't do anything else after it, she simply stood there holding my hand. (I certainly wasn't complaining.) She shot me with her big blue eyes and asked, "Oh, come on. Don't you believe me?"

Internally, my mind screamed no. Externally? I totally believed her. That's what good friends do, right? Take people at their word? So, that's what I tried my best to do.

"Of course I do." My smile likely came out all wobbly and fake, but I tried to maintain it and look as true and confident as I could. Trust me, it wasn't easy, but I did what I had to do. "Why wouldn't I?"

******

"Isn't this amazing?!"

Julie came up behind me and shook my shoulder. In the background, unnoticed by her, Aliyah rolled her eyes and Jason smirked. Amanda, on the other hand, was probably off being a social butterfly or something like that. Who even really knows with her, anyway? She's unpredictable.

"Aren't you excited yet? The gym looks amazing."

The gym looked more like a highly decorated gym, which, you know, it was. The decorations could be much better.

The halfhazardly hung up streamers looked dull and lifeless, (which, logically, I knew that they were, but it's the principle of the thing! Why hang it all up when it's so obvious that nobody cared quite enough to do it correctly?) The fruit punch looked... off, the main meal was likely to be at least an hour late, (I was proven correct around an hour or so later,) the disco and strobe lights themselves were also dull somehow, looking very much like they were old and worn out, but some teenager went, "Oh well. It's cheap! It's on budget! Let's use it anyway. It's not like anybody will notice!" News flash: somebody noticed! I wasn't even the only one, either, which tells you about all you truly need to know about that.

I should probably stop before I get off on a long, drawn out rant, shouldn't I? Look, I'm not actively trying to diss the Homecoming committee's decisions, I guess it just came out that way? I don't know. Maybe I should just shut up now...

At least the finger food looked promising?

Suddenly interrupting my internal ramblings, (luckily enough for all, probably,) was Aliyah. Aliyah looked... abnormally nervous for a night that Jason, Julie, Amanda, and herself was completely and utterly ready for. The closer she got to me, merging her way through the tons and tons of dancing bodies, the more anxious I became.

She made her way over to me and got a steady grip on my arm. "I need to talk to you."

What? What did she even say? It was so loud in there that the best I could really do was think. You know, when I could even do that much.

"Hello to you too," I replied, my tone of voice coming out drily. "How do you do?"

"Can it. I'm serious."

Amanda, who had clearly taken to smiling brightly and throwing herself into every single dance that she even remotely heard of, paused for a second. "What's going on, guys?"

"Yeah!" Julie chimed in eagerly. "I wanna know! I wanna be a part of... whatever it actually is that's going on here."

"Oh, nothing's going on," Aliyah waved our friends off somewhat impatiently, "I promise you, okay? Nothing important. Don't concern yourselves with it."

"That's exactly what you should say to get them concerned," I mumbled to her quietly, but I'm still not sure if she ever even heard me. If she did, she made no indication of it.

"You sure?" Jason raised a clearly suspicious eyebrow at her. "Because this," he motioned between the two of us, "Seems pretty darn important."

"It's nothing," she denied once again. I stayed silent. If it was nothing, then why did she need to talk to me so desperately? Something really wasn't adding up there... "No big deal."

I yanked my arm away from hers as gently as I could. "If this is no big deal, then why are you trying to get me alone so we can talk?" I crossed my arms. "Seems like something to me."

"It's none of their business."

"Why? You've known them longer than you've known me. Have you even known me for a month?"

She motioned around her at Julie and Jason. (She probably would have turned around and looked at Amanda, too, but she was back on the so-called dance floor.) "Oh? Well, do they?"

"Yes, actually."

"Really? she asked, sounding disinterested. Before I could say anything in response to her, she rapidly shook her head. "No. It's time to get back on track. Please stop overreacting and let me speak to you. It'll be really quick, I promise." When I still seemed skeptical, she even decided to beg a bit. "Please? I'm even asking nicely."

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Fine."

"Good," she spoke solemnly as she began dragging me away from the others. She pushed open the double doors to the school and sat down on the grass. Once situated properly, she patted the space next to her. Noticing her silent cue, and desperately wanting to just go back inside and have some of that abnormally good tasting food and drinks, I obeyed and sat down beside her.

"What do you need to tell me? How long will this last?"

"On my part? Probably a few minutes... but you're going to have a lot of questions. I can tell you that for sure right now."

I shrugged. So what? I always had a lot of questions. It's not like that was anything new. "So, like, less than twenty minutes?"

Much to my confusion, she simply scoffed. "Yeah. It'll be over that quickly."

"Are you being sarcastic?" She probably was.

"Of course not!" She totally was.

I crossed my arms even tighter around myself. "Could you please just get on with it? If you're going to tell me something, please do it."

Her face was solemn as she nodded. Aliyah took a deep breath in, then out, then seemed to give up on that entirely as she exhaled.

"I'm just going to get on with it. This is... going to sound blunt."

I raised an eyebrow and said nothing more. However, she stuck to her words, and did.

"Your birth parents are mine."

When I stared at her blankly, trying to decide if she was pranking me or not, she elaborated.

"I'm your sister."


End file.
